Roll Call reports that our top military commander in Iraq will make a rare visit to Capitol Hill next week, but House majority leaders initially declined the Defense Department’s offer of a members-only closed-door briefing with Army Gen. David Petraeus.

Some might recall that it was only quite recently when these same House leaders travelled several thousand miles to talk with President al-Assad of Syria, a state sponsor of terrorism according to both the Bush and Clinton administrations. But when it comes to travelling eight feet across the hall to meet with the commander of our own soldiers, an entirely different attitude emerges.

For […]

Yesterday’s mass murder at Virginia Tech University will doubtless re-ignite the Second Amendment debate. While the American Civil Rights Union has its view of that issue, it is not our purpose, for now, to discuss it. This is a time in which respect for the murder victims counsels circumspection.

We can, however, treasure the heroism that was shown by some during the siege. Below, Paul Mirengoff, writing on Power Line, notes the story of a 76 year-old Holocaust survivor, Professor Liviu Lebrescu, who gave his life so that his students could escape. Paul in turn quotes Ronald Reagan, who asked — […]

Much has been said of the recent episode in which Don Imus, a radio “shock jock,” made a racist insult against the Rutgers women’s basketball team. I have never listened to Mr. Imus’s program and don’t plan to start. I did hear re-plays of the insult. My reaction is that a media personality who says something of that sort assumes the risk of whatever he gets. It’s the 21st Century, and past time to be done with sliming people because of their race.

It is passing curious, however, that the mainstream media has turned to Reverend Al Sharpton as the Annointed National […]

The estimable Victor Davis Hanson has a dream. It starts thusly:

“I recently had a dream that British marines fought back, like their forefathers of old, against criminals and pirates. When taken captive, they proved defiant in their silence. When released, they talked to the tabloids with restraint and dignity, and accepted no recompense.

“I dreamed that a kindred German government, which best knew the wages of appeasement, cut-off all trade credits to the outlaw Iranian mullahs — even as the European Union joined the Americans in refusing commerce with this Holocaust-denying, anti-Semitic, and thuggish regime.

“NATO countries would then warn Iran that […]