ECNN

Many have charged that President Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan ten months from now is hampering our war effort. But now it’s official. In a stunning statement last week, Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Conway admitted that the July 2011 date is “probably giving our enemy sustenance.” (more…)

An indignant President Obama complained last week, “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead.” Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — not international law or global diktats. (more…)

Sometime in the next week or so, the U.S. national debt will exceed $13.4 trillion.  To put that in perspective: If you earned $1 every second, it would take you 425,000 years to earn enough money to pay off that debt. And it’s not likely to get much better any time soon. (more…)

Ike’s not a Communist, he’s a golfer.” That was Russell Kirk’s succinct response to the claim by John Birchers in the 1950s that President Eisenhower was a Communist.  In that spirit, and speaking, we think, for the vast majority of those opposed to the Ground Zero mosque, and in response to many inquiries as to where we stand on this pressing issue, The Weekly Standard would like to say, formally and emphatically, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion: President Obama is not a Muslim. (And, it turns out, he too is a golfer.) (more…)

‘Secularism can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society.” The writer was not one of those sulfurous Islamophobes decried by CAIR and the professional Left. Quite the opposite: It was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide and a favorite of the Saudi royal family. He made this assertion in his book, How the Imported Solutions Disastrously Affected Our Ummah, an excerpt of which was published by the Saudi Gazette just a couple of months ago. (more…)

Last weekend, President Obama pandered for votes by trashing Social Security privatization.  “I’d have thought that debate would’ve been put to rest once and for all by the financial crisis we’ve just experienced,” Obama said. “(N)o one would want to place bets with Social Security on Wall Street”. (more…)

‘Let me be clear,” Pres. Barack Obama said at Friday night’s iftar dinner at the White House before making what nearly everyone took to be a deeply felt endorsement of the Ground Zero mosque. “Obama Strongly Backs Islam Center Near 9/11 Site,” was the New York Times headline. (more…)

A place is made sacred by a widespread belief that it was visited by the miraculous or the transcendent (Lourdes, the Temple Mount), by the presence there once of great nobility and sacrifice (Gettysburg), or by the blood of martyrs and the indescribable suffering of the innocent (Auschwitz). (more…)

Claudia Rosett was first to report on Friday that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man spearheading the Ground Zero Mosque initiative, is about to take a month-long trip through the Middle East sponsored by the U.S. government:  Ultimately, in response to repeated questions, a member of Rauf’s New York Cordoba Initiative foundation e-mailed me Friday, saying that Rauf’s trip to the Middle East, “in the near future,” will be hosted by the U.S. government as part of an outreach program to “bring the message of moderation, peace and understanding.” (more…)

When President Obama took over from George W. Bush, many European diplomats and human-rights activists were energized. They hoped the so-called Obama effect would lead to America’s championing a new golden era for international human rights as it re-engaged with the United Nations and brought obstructionist countries —supposedly alienated by the Bush administration’s arrogance — back to the path of progress. But these idealists have had a rude awakening: Under Obama, things have taken a turn for the worse. (more…)