Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Hard not to like Huckabee
What with both Chuck Norris and Ric Flair in his corner.
Check out my review in the November issue of Policy Options magazine of a new book about Brian Mulroney's legacy called Transforming the Nation. Warning: the review is only available in .pdf format, and the link will take you directly to the .pdf.
It's déjà-vu all over again. Every time a U.S. president reaches his final year or two in office, he looks for a way to create a lasting legacy. For some reason, he always end up picking the same issue -- Israeli/Palestian peace:
U.S. President George Bush will turn his attention today to the goal of brokering an elusive agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Bush has invited the leaders of the two sides of the conflict to Washington and will be holding separate meetings with both at the White House on Monday.
The talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will lay the groundwork for all-day Mideast talks on Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland.
The meetings have been endorsed by the Arab League and will be attended by 16 Arab states. Significantly, even Syria, a nation that has been at war with Israel for decades, has announced it will attend the sessions.
Bush had made it one of the priorities of his administration to achieve a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
I'm afraid this latest kick at the can, like the litany of those before it, is doomed to failure. It will be rushed in an effort to complete a deal before Bush leaves office. Palestinian terrorist groups will continue attacking Israel, communication will break down, Hamas will be re-elected and we'll be back to the same vicious cycle.
One of the most important columns I've read in a while by Jonathan Kay. I've spent a few minutes now trying to find a nugget to excerpt here, but can't. You simply must read the whole thing. It's one of those dispiriting kind of stories that makes you wonder why we fight.
One cannot accuse Hillary Clinton's campaign of lacking in tactical wizardry. Case in point: the story, leaked over the weekend to Bob Novak (obviously by a Clinton official) that the Clinton campaign has the goods on an apparent "scandal" involving Barak Obama. The nature of the scandal, however, would not be released by the campaign.
The trap was thus set for Obama, who fell for it hook, line and sinker:
Mr Obama, who is standing on a platform of changing Washington’s adversarial culture, accused the Democratic front-runner of using “Swift Boat” tactics of “innuendo and insinuation” similar to those deployed in the 2004 race when John Kerry’s Vietnam war record as a Swift Boat captain was smeared.
“I am prepared to stand up to that kind of politics, whether it’s deployed by candidates in our party, in the other party or by any third party,” he said. “The cause of moving America forward demands that we defeat it.
“She of all people, having complained so often about the politics of personal destruction, should move quickly to either stand by or renounce these tactics.”
Howard Wolfson, Mrs Clinton’s spokesman, protested that she had “no idea” what the claim — reported by the conservative columnist Robert Novak — was all about. He suggested that Mr Obama had shown his naivety by falling for an old right-wing trick: “A Republican-leaning journalist runs a blind item designed to set Democrats against one another. Experienced Democrats see this for what it is. Others get distracted and thrown off their games,” Mr Wolfson said.
Barak Obama: too inexperienced to be President. Magical work by the Clinton campaign.
Some of the best foreign-policy reading you'll find anywhere about the current state of the War on Terror, or whatever appelation you wish you to use. Particularly good is John Bolton's contribution, in which he draws an important distinction between liberty and democracy.
Billionaire Warren Buffett told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee today that Congress should keep the estate tax rather than repeal it and help a few rich Americans like him.
"I think we need to ... take a little more out of the hides of guys like me," Buffett told the panel.
One of the world's richest men and biggest philanthropists, Buffett has been outspoken against efforts, mostly by Republicans, to repeal or reduce the federal tax on inheritances. Democrats argue that a repeal would amount to a huge windfall for the nation's wealthiest families.
The fate of the levy will effectively be decided during next year's presidential and congressional elections.
The solution to this is easy: make the death tax voluntary. If Warren wants to donate some of his assets to the government, he should do so. Let the rest of those who want to keep it do so. Everyone is happy that way.
David Radler, the star witness in the U.S. government's criminal fraud case against Conrad Black and three former Hollinger International Inc. executives, met privately with the former press baron's controversial biographer every day before he testified at the trial, according to an unpublished manuscript.
Some legal observers have expressed concerns at the optics of a situation where a witness is in position to discuss a case with a journalist while giving testimony.
"Every morning before Radler testified, they would meet at the swimming pool of the Peninsula Hotel, where Radler was staying, and speak together about the case," writes Canadian criminal lawyer Steven Skurka in an upcoming book about the 16-week criminal trial.
The lengthy article by Post writer Theresa Tedesco hints, via comments from various ex-prosecutors and lawyers, that this behaviour may have been not exactly above-board. Expect to hear a lot more of it as we approach the appeal.
In a blistering $100 million lawsuit filed today in New York State Supreme Court, Regan, 54, accuses several defendants, including Murdoch's News Corporation and HarperCollins Publishers, of orchestrating a smear campaign that was intended to advance the Murdoch political agenda and protect "Rudy Giuliani's presidential ambitions." According to Regan, Murdoch employees were aware of her personal relationship with Kerik and, fearing she had damaging information on Giuliani's former police commissioner and business partner, "knew they would be protecting Giuliani if they could preemptively discredit her."
You remember Borys Wrzesnewskyj, right? Lo and behold, he's at it again, this time speaking at a funeral for a member of the Tamil Tigers:
Historically, conflict has often yielded armed battle; yet resolution favours dialogue, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the Liberal MP representing Etobicoke-Centre, said after addressing the mourners. He pointed to Britain's negotiations with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), once considered a terrorist group; the talks brought stability to Northern Ireland.
...
The Tamil Tigers are a traditional guerrilla movement like Colombia's FARC, but they use the tactics of terrorism, notably suicide bombings and political assassinations; as a result they have been designated internationally as a terrorist organization.
Borys now seems to be soft on not one but two of the groups on Canada's list of banned terrorist organizations.
This man may have been a wonderful person, but he was one of the heads of the Tamil Tigers. What kind of message is this sending?
It is worth noting that several other Liberal MPs -- Maria Minna, John McKay and Jim Karygiannis -- were present at the funeral.
Over the weekend in the National Post, two marquee columnist, Robert Fulford and Conrad Black, each lay it on Newman, picking up on the controversy surrounding his recent Globe and Mail book review (not free online) of Jean Chrétien's memoirs.
For those that haven't followed this (admittedly inside-baseball) saga, Newman panned the Chrétien book in his review, which appeared two weeks ago in the Globe. That led to the highly unusual -- unprecedented, I think -- move by Chrétien's publisher of taking out an ad in the Globe's A section to rebut Newman's critique.
Newman's review was unquestionably shoddy and over-the-top. Fulford and others surmise that Newman never even read the book, and the fact that Chrétien never cooperated with him over the course of his political career -- not once according him an interview in 40 + years -- surely played a role in his animus-laden review.
We're still waiting for a response from Newman, which, knowing him, is forthcoming. Stay tuned.
