Alan Caruba

The Stench of Sleaze

I’m betting that we will all look back at the confirmation hearings, the controversy over Barack Obama’s birthplace, and the “Blago” scandal, and say “Why weren’t we paying more attention?”

Barack Lincoln

What is with all this positioning of Barack Obama as the next Abraham Lincoln? Obama began his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, famed home of Lincoln. He returns there periodically for other announcements, but he still vacations in Hawaii. We’re told Obama read a book about how Lincoln put together his cabinet, including “rivals” which one must presume means Hillary Clinton. The rest of his cabinet is mostly Clinton retreads and, predictably, some have already run into confirmation problems.

My Bad Attitude

I’ve noticed that the closer we all draw toward Inauguration Day, January 20th, my attitude toward life grows worse. I have been depressed in the past over the usual vicissitudes and I suppose that as one grows older there is a tendency to look back and think one’s life was better in earlier times, but the fact is that life was better.

Are We Being Hustled?

I am perhaps naïve, but I can’t shake the feeling that the politicians are once again hustling us all with the endless talk about “bailouts” and “TARP” and the constant repetition that the nation is in a deep recession and that billions must be spent to escape it before a depression sets in.

Let the Hype Begin

In the run-up to the inauguration, the mainstream media will engage in myth-making to encourage everyone to believe that Barack Obama is the man of the hour (“Our time has come”) and will be able to solve all the problems the nation faces.

ExxonMobil Throws in the Towel

I don’t know why it was news on January 9 that the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ExxonMobil favored a carbon tax as the most efficient way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Put Your Bet on Stupidity

We are well into a major Recession and I think most people are betting on the stupidity and cupidity of our nation’s leaders, elected and appointed, to ensure that it happens. One need only look at previous efforts to effect some control over the economy while, at the same time, running it into the ground.

Everybody has a Gaza Peace Plan Except Hamas

The peace plans for the Gaza strip and its political, social and military leadership, Hamas, are coming thick and fast.

The Democrat Comic Opera

The Democrats have lusted for total power for eight long years since the departure of Bill (the meaning of 'is') Clinton, disbarred lawyer, adulterer, and former President of the United States. Since 2000 they passed their time blaming everything on George W. Bush, including acts of God such as Hurricane Katrina.

Are Liberals Getting Smarter? Let’s Hope So

Something quite extraordinary happened on Saturday, January 3rd. The Huffington Post.com, a bastion of liberal thought, published a commentary by Harold Ambler that demanded an apology from Al Gore for all the lies he’s been telling about “global warming” or, as the alarmists now call it, “climate change.”

Welcome to 2008…Again

Americans, famed now for their short attention span and memory, as well as their general lack of knowledge of their own history, would benefit if they just looked back a year to the beginning of 2008 to recall what we were thinking and what we were anticipating.

The Plain Truth about Glorious Carbon Dioxide

Okay, children, let’s all sit up straight at our desks. We are going to begin 2009 with a lesson about carbon dioxide (CO2).

Israel Attacks Gaza and Arabs Attack Each Other

One would think that the retaliatory attack on Gaza by the Israelis would unite the Arab Middle East, but you would be wrong. Arabs are not big fans of one another.

Cuba Celebrates, But Why?

The year that I graduated from the University of Miami, 1959, Fidel Castro and his guerrilla, revolutionary forces swept into Havana to replace the dictator Fulgencio Batista with a new dictator, Fidel. The New York Times hailed it as a new birth of freedom in Cuba because their reporter in Cuba never had a clue that Fidel was a communist. He was a “freedom fighter” and his target was the regime backed by the U.S. Even then, anything that bodes ill for the U.S. was considered by The Times as a good thing. Two years later, the U.S. slapped an embargo on Cuba that remains today with the exception of some agricultural products which, not surprisingly, must be paid for in advance.

A Map of Freedom or the Lack of It

Every July, Freedom House, an organization that tracks the progress or the lack of freedom around the world, releases a map that identifies those nations where freedom exists and where it does not.

Predictions for 2009

Everybody in the pundit trade likes to make predictions. If they come true, we look smarter than we really are and, if they don’t, no further mention of them is made.

People I Don’t Want to Hear About in 2009

If I had the power, there are any number of people from whom or about whom I would not want to hear, see, or read anything in 2009. Here’s a short list!

Brilliant Thoughts

In my capacity as a veteran book reviewer—nearly fifty years—I recently received some books in a series called the “Daily Dose of Knowledge.” I must confess I like these bite-sized offerings and one of the series is titled “Brilliant Thoughts.”

Barack Obama: Oratory Versus Action

Perhaps it is because I make my living with words that I am more attuned to their meaning and power, but what has struck me most forcefully during the Obama campaign and in these days leading up to his inauguration is his powerful grasp of the utterly vague phrase.

The Palestinian Answer to Everything is War

Writing in May 2008 on the occasion of Israel’s sixtieth anniversary, Fouad Ajami, a longtime observer and commentator of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, said that “The Arab imagination could never reconcile itself to the permanence of the Jewish state…stubbornly refusing to accept the verdict of what happened in 1948.”