Silence as Gesture
The world-famous mime Marcel Marceau (1923-2007), who died this week at 84, was buried on September 26 in Paris’s historic Père-Lachaise cemetery. The previous Grand Rabbi of France, Algerian-born...
View ArticleBravo Adam Schiff!
Fans of television’s Law & Order have waited in vain for any commemoration of the 85th birthday of Steven Hill, the actor who played New York District Attorney Adam Schiff from 1990 to 2000. Hill...
View ArticleThe NIE and Neorealism
Norman Podhoretz has already pointed out that the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran “represents a 180-degree turn from the conclusions of the last NIE on Iran’s nuclear program,” which were...
View ArticleBookshelf
• The perfect non-fiction book is one that tells you everything you really need to know about a given subject, be it large or small, in 250 pages or less, and does the job with style. That was the...
View ArticleFirst Demi Moore Became a Kabbalist. Now This.
The actor Andrew McCarthy is writing a diary for Slate about his work on a new television show called Lipstick Jungle. The show is not good (this isn’t what McCarthy says; it’s what I’m telling you)....
View ArticleOscar Predictions
Here’s the thing: I’m generally lousy at them, because I always overthink these things. So I suppose since everybody and his brother are saying No Country for Old Men is going to win, it probably is —...
View ArticleHype Defined
Actor Ed Norton on the creative impetus behind his upcoming documentary on the Obama campaign: We were all so struck by Barack’s speech and talked about how exciting it was to see someone from our...
View ArticleBrando and the Jews
The news of Charlton Heston’s death on April 5 at age 84 brought to mind the passing, four years ago, of one of his legendary contemporaries, primarily because April 3 would have been Marlin Brando’s...
View ArticleWhy Iran And Not Hamas?
Senator Barack Obama has staked out positions on both Hamas and Iran that are worth examining. On Hamas, Obama says, “We must not negotiate with a terrorist group that’s intent on Israel’s destruction....
View ArticleHillary’s RFK Remark
When politicians err, really err, it’s often because they recite the stage directions — the part of the script that directs an actor but is supposed to be unknown to the audience. The Elder George Bush...
View ArticleBarack Millstone Obama
The news that Democratic Senator Evan Bayh is retiring is another stunning blow for a Democratic party that is already reeling. This development — because of who Bayh is (perceived as a...
View ArticleAmerica in Retreat
Lee Smith writes that Obama’s Israel bash-a-thon is precisely the wrong strategic move: Of course, Washington shaming Israel will please the Arabs—even U.S. allies like Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Cairo,...
View ArticleYa’alon Unloads on Obami
The entire interview with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon should be read in full here. But a few of the Q&As are certainly of particular note. On the American...
View ArticleThe CIA’s Self-Fulfilling Premises in Afghanistan
Dexter Filkins has a good dispatch from Afghanistan — or as the headline dubs it, “Corrupt-istan.” He (correctly, in my opinion) criticizes all too many senior U.S. officials for their condescending...
View ArticleStarstruck Clooney Misses the Point About Disastrous Sudan Policy
George Clooney’s visit to the White House yesterday sent the press corps into something like a swoon as press secretary Robert Gibbs cut short the daily press conference so all present could ogle the...
View ArticleMorning Commentary
It looks like Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier misread the judicial system in Haiti. Just days after he mysteriously returned to the country after a 25-year exile, the former Haitian dictator was...
View ArticleThe Culture War Against Israel
In 2010, the hard-core left married pro-Islamic and pro-Palestinian organizations and gave birth to an entertainment-boycott campaign aimed at Israel. Cultural-boycott efforts have spilled over into...
View ArticleMorning Commentary
On Saturday, P5+1 officials will meet with Iranian leaders to push them to ensure that their nuclear program is peaceful. But it looks like Iran is doing everything in its power not to cooperate:...
View ArticleReagan as Draftsman
Ronald Reagan’s hundredth birthday falls on Sunday, February 6. As Steven Hayward pointed out several years ago, Reagan is not only starting to feature in histories — a development that, given the...
View ArticleSharansky: Reagan Right, Critics Wrong
Ronald Reagan, who would have been 100 this Sunday, had an instinctive affinity for Jews and Israel. As an actor who spent decades in the heavily Jewish environment of Hollywood and who counted scores...
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