Year: 2014

In a recent confrontation between protesters against the illegal flood of unaccompanied children into the United States and counter-protests by some Hispanic group, one man from the latter group said angrily, “We are as good as you are!” One of the things that make the history of clashes over race or ethnicity such a history […]

Forty-five years ago, there was a day like few others that rallied Americans and changed America forever. Yet I could find but one or two news stories about that momentous occasion and triumph. Do you remember what it was? It’s the type of event that America needs now, maybe more than ever before. If you’re […]

Efforts to proclaim moral equivalence are not always misguided; sometimes each side is equally at fault or close enough. But these efforts are often misguided and unhelpful — and sometimes harmful. Throughout my life, there has been an increasing trend to attach moral equivalence to all kinds of disputes and conflicts, such as Israel vs. […]

Who will be the GOP nominee in 2016? I don’t know, but I have a pretty good idea who the running mate will be: Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Unless Paul is the nominee. A new NBC News/Marist poll found that Paul would be the top GOP vote-getter against Hillary Clinton in critically important Iowa […]

When I was a graduate student at Columbia University’s Russian Institute, there was a great debate: Was the communist Soviet Union an organic Russian development or was it largely a cancer imposed on it? Those who held the organic view argued that the change from czar to commissar was only one of degree. Both were […]

The bodies of 298 passengers and crew of Malaysia Air Flight 17, 80 of them children, lie unburied in a Ukrainian field while Vladimir Putin’s men fire their weapons into the air to keep international investigators from approaching the site. Yes, “Putin’s men.” Calling them “Russian separatists” unnecessarily dignifies them. They are supplied, armed and […]

“Why do you think President Obama’s job rating is falling, even though the economy is recovering?” the interviewer asked. It’s a fair question, even though the economy declined 2.9 percent in the first quarter, even though most jobs created in June were part-time, and even though labor force participation remains low. The fact is that […]

Just days after the tragic crash of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine, Western politicians and media joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster. It had to be Russia; it had to be Putin, they said. President Obama held a press conference to claim – even before an investigation – […]

The anti-Semitic “tradition” of blaming Jews for the world’s problems mostly took a temporary back seat in light of the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas. Major newspaper editorials condemned Hamas, but their condemnation was hedged by calls for “restraint” on “both sides” and “proportionality” in Israel’s response to the attacks. […]