The Case Against the United Nations

Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Over two years ago, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, world leaders pledged to adopt a "radical" reform agenda at their General Assembly meeting in New York. Financial mismanagement, predatory peacekeepers, failure to stop human rights atrocities--hardly any important U.N. function escaped withering criticism.  [Full Story]

Bush's Leap of Faith
Democratic progress in the Middle East will require more than just elections
Posted: Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Who, since 9/11, cannot see the connection between oppressive religious regimes, economic stagnation, and terrorism? If the rights of conscience are not protected by law, it's unlikely that other liberties -- political and economic -- will flourish.  [Full Story]

Barack Obama Offers Hope but Does He Possess Wisdom?

Posted: Thursday, January 10, 2008
Keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of genocidal jihadists, rebuilding the failed states of Afghanistan and Iraq, prodding democratic reform in the Arab world -- these are not causes to be undertaken by those armed only with hope.  [Full Story]

The New Fundamentalists
Media gatekeepers.
Posted: Wednesday, December 19, 2007
An article of faith among many liberals is that religion and tolerance don't go well together. In a recent editorial, for example, the New York Times matter-of-factly derided conservative Christians as "the most religiously intolerant sector of American political life." That's quite a sector.  [Full Story]

A Bad Day for Human Rights
Something has been lost since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first adopted.
Posted: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Yesterday was International Human Rights Day, the date marking the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Not even the most devoted U.N. apologists, however, could be in a festive mood. Even by their own Orwellian standards--in which the world's dictatorships sit in judgment of the world's democracies--it has not been a banner year for the cause of human rights.  [Full Story]

Mitt Romney's Step of Faith

Posted: Monday, December 10, 2007
Skeptics at home and abroad are carping about Mitt Romney's first major speech on religion. They should stop huffing and hyperventilating long enough to actually read it -- a text that ranks as the most sober, sane, and historically informed view of religion and American democracy delivered thus far in the presidential campaign.  [Full Story]

Teddy Bear Totalitarianism
Back to 7th century Arabia.
Posted: Thursday, December 6, 2007
The arrest of a British school teacher in Sudan last week -- amid demands for her execution -- had all the earmarks of a Samuel Beckett play, a theatre of the absurd that is attracting sell-out crowds in many parts of the Islamic world. The latest source of Muslim rage: a teddy bear.  [Full Story]

People of the Book
The British Library makes nice at the expense of scholarship.
Posted: Monday, November 26, 2007
Earlier this year the British Library hosted a lavish exhibition of the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It was an effort designed to ease simmering religious tensions in the United Kingdom. Despite these good intentions, the exhibition repeatedly managed to distort the history and beliefs of the three religions in ways that make interfaith dialogue not easier but more difficult.  [Full Story]

Thanksgiving in War Time

Posted: Monday, November 26, 2007
When America publicly gives thanks to the Almighty, it opens a window into the soul. In times of war we glimpse the torments and the hopes of a nation struggling to realize, or salvage, its founding ideals.`  [Full Story]

Preachers and Presidential Politics

Posted: Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The endorsement by televangelist Pat Robertson of Rudy Giuliani as the Republican presidential candidate is being frantically scrutinized for its deeper cultural significance. The new conventional wisdom, advanced by outlets such as The New York Times, sees a fractured and confused conservative Christian vote.  [Full Story]