Copyright 2012 The New York Sun Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:26:55 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Conrad Black :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Conrad+Black admin@nysun.net (Seth Lipsky) webmaster@nysun.com en-us CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obama-ignites-a-catholic-moment-in-the-culture/87708/ Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:26:42 EST The last two weeks have produced an astounding convergence of profound philosophical public controversies in the United States that finally does justify the phrase, much bandied about for some years, “culture wars.” That expression was coined originally for Bismarck’s mad Kulturkampf against the Roman Catholic Church (and, to a lesser degree, other churches) in the mid–19th century. It was the usual self-aggrandizement of secular states against a vast, international, un-submissive... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/editorials/west-falters-in-defense-of-christians-who-are/87699/ Wed, 8 Feb 2012 22:05:42 EST Perhaps the gravest under-publicized atrocity in the world is the persecution of Christians. A comprehensive Pew Forum study last year found that Christians are persecuted in 131 countries containing 70% of the world’s population, out of 197 countries in the world (if Palestine, Taiwan, South Sudan, and the Vatican are included). Best estimates are that about 200 million Christians are in communities where they are persecuted. There is not the slightest question of the scale and barbarity of... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/a-brilliant-reign-nears-its-diamond-jubilee/87691/ Sat, 4 Feb 2012 08:21:21 EST It does not seem like 60 years ago that my late brother said to our half-asleep parents as we departed early for school: “There was a bug in my cereal, and by the way, the King is dead.” A much admired man, only 56, there were some comparisons between George VI and then U.S. president Harry S. Truman, as men who had not sought the greatest offices for which they were eligible, neither expected nor wished them, but acquitted them admirably when they were thrust upon them. In other respects, King... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/state-of-obama-begs-for-a-challenger-like-mitch/87685/ Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:06:38 EST I cannot have been the only person who found President Obama’s State of the Union message and much of the indulgence of it, even by serious commentators, worrisome. The president was correct that “too many of our institutions have let us down.” He seemed not to recognize that first among them were the administration (especially the presidency), the Congress, and the Supreme Court — the speaker and the audience for the occasion (apart from the justices who boycotted because of Mr. Obama’s... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/vindication-is-piling-up-for-one-of-the-greatest/87641/ Sat, 7 Jan 2012 09:37:17 EST Though it is probably happening too late to be overly gratifying to her, events are piling on to vindicate Margaret Thatcher completely in her reservations about British integration in Europe. Her response to the proposal to reduce Britain to a local government in a federal Europe was, memorably: “No, no, no, and never.” And her reward for her refusal to get on board what was then the thundering bandwagon of Euro-federalism, was to be sent packing by her own ungrateful party, though she was the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/a-comeback-of-nixonian-if-not-lazarene/87669/ Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:46:58 EST Just when it seemed the presidential campaign could not become odder, it has. If, as I wrote last week here, Mitt is an improbable savior for America, Newt Agonistes is an apparition that the mothers of America could use to frighten their children into eating their breakfast cereal. As the inventor last month (I doubt if anyone else would claim or even admit to it) of the Hegelian Newt — who would not win the nomination but could prevent Mitt from closing the deal and enable the Republican... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/deaths-of-kim-jong-il-vaclav-havel-lead/87627/ Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:16:01 EST The deaths, only a couple of days apart, of the Manichaean figures of Kim Jong Il and Václav Havel invite some historical reflection. In Korea, the 38th Parallel was determined to be the division between North and South Korea one summer night in 1945 by two junior American officers — including the future secretary of state Dean Rusk, then a colonel. It was chosen as the dividing point to determine whether the Japanese garrison in Korea should surrender to the Soviet Union or to the United... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/israels-prospects-have-never-been-brighter-as/87625/ Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:23:56 EST Up until the mid-1960s, when I was young, the television news and airwaves at this time of year were full of references to the “Holy Land.” There were endless melodious carols and much sacred music portraying cities such as Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and many other geographic names such as the Jordan River, and even Babylon, in sanctified tones, as quiet, spiritual places. Of course, decades of bloodshed, terrorism, and confected and orchestrated sectarian hatred have engulfed the region since... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/romney-emerges-as-an-improbable-savior-in-an-age/87658/ Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:47:42 EST Though it is distressing to be enduring such a dismal election campaign, it is not unprecedented. As both parties prepare to spend a billion dollars either reelecting a president most Americans do not think deserves to be reelected, or a challenger most of his fellow Republicans don’t think can win (and as in most things, the public may well be right on both counts), it is easy to find the whole process discouraging. The liberal national media took dead aim at Mitt Romney when he emerged from... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obamas-defense-strategy-leaves-room-for-hope-if/87650/ Fri, 13 Jan 2012 10:53:04 EST It would be unfair to dismiss the administration’s latest assault on the U.S.’s defense capability as the folly and cowardice some commentators are already alleging. Without a worldwide rival of comparable strength threatening all American strategic interests, it is certainly possible to retrench gradually and support regional forces of stability and, preferably, moderation. President Roosevelt saw that if Nazi Germany were permitted to retain its conquests of 1938–40, and to continue to enjoy... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/could-nato-emerge-as-an-alliance-of-democracies/87398/ Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:40:16 EST Outgoing defense secretary Robert Gates’s final policy speech in office, on June 10 in Brussels, laid out the problems and anomalies of NATO more clearly than any figure of such authority has done before. He was upbeat about most aspects of the Afghanistan operation, which, he usefully reminded us, is the first actual ground combat NATO as an alliance has ever fought, as well as the first serious test of the alliance in this century. In 2006, there were 20,000 non-U.S. NATO combat troops in... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/editorials/its-on-getting-ready-for-santorum-and-watch-out/87636/ Thu, 5 Jan 2012 13:04:58 EST We will have to wait to see whether Rick Santorum’s jump to a virtual dead heat with Mitt in Iowa is enough to bring out the anti-non-Mitt assassination squads. Santorum is an unusually fervent Roman Catholic for a presidential candidate and such an emergence would doubtless treat us all, one more time, to Gail Collins and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times dusting off their former little selves as intellectually abused Catholic choir girls and Garry Wills acolytes in dogmatic schism. Who... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/germany-canada-and-israel-stand-out-in-a-parlous/87629/ Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:51:14 EST My year-end column will be a tour of the political horizon, with a reflection on the comparative virtues of good government. But anyone gripped by the fear that I am going to sermonize some treacle about civics at them has nothing to fear. In all of the European Union, apart from a few of the very small states, only Germany, Finland, Poland, and the Czechs qualify as well-governed. They have all kept unemployment and deficits under control, returned to economic growth, and avoided catastrophic... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/has-the-west-become-so-feeble-that-we-are-afraid/87253/ Sat, 5 Mar 2011 08:06:22 EST Has the West become so feeble that we are afraid to help Libyans get rid of their murderous fruitcake of a despot? It was a signal achievement for the United Nations Security Council to censure Libya for barbarities against civilians. Also laudable was the General Assembly’s decision to suspend Libya from its preposterous position as chair of the Human Rights Council. But otherwise, the toing and froing of the Western powers over Libya is becoming alarming: Bold talk of a no-fly zone and of... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/national/america-will-have-to-take-stock-of-its-positon-as/87549/ Thu, 3 Nov 2011 10:14:13 EST At some point, unfashionable though it is to do so, the United States will have to take stock of its position as a great power. Despite the globalization of a great range of issues, from the environment to terrorism, the world is still substantially directed by the applied influence of its principal countries. And however down-at-the-heel and -mouth it may be, or at least feel sometimes, the U.S. is incomparably the world’s most important country. It has by far the largest economy and most... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/merry-christmas-to-christopher-hitchens-wherever/87620/ Sat, 24 Dec 2011 07:45:15 EST As Christmas remains a religious occasion, a few thoughts from that perspective commend themselves. The National Post [where this dispatch first appeared] seems to have been plunged into mourning for Christopher Hitchens, perhaps best-known for his belligerent atheism. I must say that I had a few fierce written exchanges with Christopher over the years, mainly in Britain’s Spectator magazine, but not on religious matters. In our polemical battles, which were entertainingly acidulous and... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/first-real-convention-draft-since-1952-may-be/87618/ Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:44:30 EST It seems to me that I have a duty to write about Newt Gingrich, as I am one who did not think his rise in the polls as a Republican presidential contender would be as durable as it already has been. As interesting as Newt himself is the dumbfounded reaction to his return to the grand tier of political life after a sleep almost as long as Rip Van Winkle’s, and after he had flat-lined for months as a candidate, and had been abandoned by his entire staff. In a year that should be a big Republican... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/america-agitation-for-europe-to-dilute-its/87614/ Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:17:18 EST The fate of the Eurozone is an excruciatingly slow reenactment of The Perils of Pauline. The latest beaming photo opportunity — as another emergency agreement was made last week and more than a score of European national leaders preeningly tried to appear relevant, if not exactly statesmanlike — will be as fleeting a source of comfort and celebration as its many predecessors. The idea of a tightly enforced injunction against any repetition of today’s debt-raddled impotence and chaos, without... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/foreign/could-degaulles-playbook-work-in-egypt/87227/ Fri, 4 Feb 2011 08:46:14 EST There are only three ways to deal with the sort of uprising that has occurred in the last week in Egypt: smash it, face it down more or less peacefully, or yield to it. Mobs, even when they are championing a good cause, are cowardly and easily routed by force. Napoleon demonstrated this with his famous “whiff of grapeshot” (cannons loaded with small pellets or other hard objects). So did Deng Xiaoping in Tiananmen Square. Charles de Gaulle wrote the playbook for facing down demonstrators and... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/pat-buchanan-chooses-shame-and-ends-up-as/87609/ Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:48:27 EST I am afraid that Pat Buchanan, who earned his battle stars as a courageous spokesman for President Nixon, especially when he demolished the rabidly partisan Senate Watergate Committee in 1973, has become a babbling idiot. He returned to the Reagan White House and performed less needed prodigies for a much less beleaguered administration. His disenchantment with what he took to be the apostasy of the administration of George Bush Sr. is understandable, but the plan of action he devised for... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/editorials/economic-horizon-is-brightening-as-arithetic/87602/ Sat, 10 Dec 2011 04:54:16 EST Difficult though current economic and political times are, ineluctable forces of economic arithmetic and national interest are asserting themselves in ways that are, in the circumstances, reassuring. There are a number of particular areas where this phenomenon of irrepressible geopolitical logic is emerging. Finally, the Chinese miracle, replete with the hallelujah chorus of China marching inexorably to the headship of the world, is starting to appear less a wave of the future than a faddish... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/national/decline-of-europe-throws-vision-of-degaulle-into/87499/ Thu, 29 Sep 2011 07:52:20 EST The admirable Seth Lipsky of The New York Sun, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and the (English-language) Jewish Forward, seems to be the first American commentator since Walter Lippmann to recognize the prescience, in post–World War II matters, of Charles de Gaulle. He was referring especially to de Gaulle’s recommendation of a restored gold standard as de Gaulle and his chief economic adviser, Jacques Rueff, feared what would happen to the world’s currencies if they were valued only in... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/how-golda-meir-indira-gandhi-and-margaret/87590/ Sat, 3 Dec 2011 21:59:10 EST It is surely time to recognize what an immense improvement has been wrought in world standards of governance by the rise of female national leaders. Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi were effectively the pioneers, among democratically elected leaders, though the genius of a considerable number of previous empresses and queens gave a foretaste of what the world was denying itself in excluding women from its highest public offices (and most other important positions). Queen Elizabeth I was the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/collapse-of-us-justice-system-into-a-shambles/87587/ Thu, 1 Dec 2011 11:09:38 EST In the current issue of Commentary, there is a symposium of 43 knowledgeable people who discuss whether they are optimistic or pessimistic about America. In the current edition of The New Criterion, the eminent British historian Andrew Roberts, now a U.S. resident, assesses similar points in a lead essay about how benign America has been as the superpower, and how keenly it will be missed if superseded in that role by China. Nowhere in either interesting section of either magazine is the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/nixon-and-kissinger-emerge-in-ever-better-light/87579/ Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:39:20 EST The latest drop from the interminably repetitive and rather innocuous Nixon Tapes has caused the customary outburst of confected indignation against Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as anti-Semites, and, in the case of Kissinger, as effectively a self-hating Jew. This is the final spluttering of the Nixon demonology movement and its subcommittee for the smearing of Kissinger. Nearly 40 years after Watergate, it is long past time that the Nixon presidency be seen as the imaginative and... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/in-which-our-man-on-the-canada-beat-defends/87572/ Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:00:54 EST It is with regret that I take issue, and square off, with my esteemed friend of many years, Senator for Ontario Nicole Eaton. But I am scandalized by her rude and almost unpatriotic attack on the noble and distinguished national animal of Canada.* The beaver is an almost incomparably exemplary and original national animal. Eagles abound; Germany’s scrawny black eagle, a panoply of other Alpine, Andean, and Central American eagles, including Mexico’s rampant and belligerent version, Egypt’s... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/even-kafka-would-be-scandalized-at-obamas-effort/87562/ Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:22:54 EST The effort by junior administration officials to banish all references to God from the speeches recorded on plaques at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC, is an outrage. It would be wrong to impute every action of everyone in the vast U.S. government to the dispositions of the current president, but any militant disregard for religious sensibilities does seem to reflect his disparagement of the tendency of Americans who don't vote for him to reach for religion (and guns) in... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/western-nations-will-survive-but-not-by-staying/87560/ Thu, 10 Nov 2011 11:00:43 EST As the world financial crisis deepens, it is unlikely that it can be alleviated without carefully reviewing the infelicitous confluence of mistakes in Europe and the United States that has brought it to its present extreme state. The European Monetary Union, involving 17 countries, was based on a number of generally admirable premises, but also on a couple of false assumptions. All civilized people were grateful at the extension of European cooperation to this new level of intimacy, as ancient... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/reforms-of-british-monarchy-desirable-but/87553/ Sat, 5 Nov 2011 08:46:51 EST The proposed changes to the rules of British Commonwealth monarchic succession and marriage raise some interesting reflections on the past and future. Henceforth, if these changes are adopted, the eldest shall succeed regardless of sex. This is not only right in itself, but responds to the fact that British reigning queens have on average been more talented than the kings. Mary I was problematic; Mary II and Anne were adequate; Victoria and the   Queen are generally reckoned to be highly... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/hope-for-talks-in-middle-east-lies-in-recognition/87542/ Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:44:47 EST The recent exchange of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for a thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands is regarded as a cautiously hopeful sign even by Israeli hawks, as it appears the only possible de-escalation from the absolute collapse of the peace process that was almost implicit in the Palestinian bid for full membership as a state in the United Nations. The Israeli Right was fiercely opposed to Palestinian statehood from 1948 until relatively recently, when it realized that the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/future-of-american-justice-depends-on-restoration/87531/ Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:18:26 EST In addition to acknowledging the many positive messages I received about my column here last week partly about Justice Scalia, I want to thank Shannen Coffin, a chirpily content former Justice Department official and legal counsel to Vice President Cheney, for writing, despite his farrago of sophomoric pedantries and disparagements. After his opening summary, he conveniently put the question: “Have I got that right?” I am afraid not, and he didn’t get much else right either, which enables me to... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/editorials/my-brother-monte-and-me/87535/ Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:55:08 EST My brother Monte — George Montegu Black III — died nearly 10 years ago, but arises constantly in my thoughts and dreams, always pleasantly and true to life. There were just the two of us in our family, and he was four years older, not a great gap among adults, but a huge difference between children. It was among the greatest good fortunes I have had that my brother, unlike other older brothers in families we knew, never abused his superior strength or even his worldlier gift for repartee. I... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/would-steve-jobs-have-been-born-in-an-america/87523/ Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:40:04 EST The vast recognition of the astounding accomplishments of Apple’s Steve Jobs seems not much to have focused on the fact that — according to the moral views that have prevailed in the United States for most of his adult life — he, as the unintended issue of a young, unmarried couple of limited means, was a prime candidate for abortion, which the Supreme Court has determined to be a matter of a woman’s privacy and sole authority over her own body. My purpose is not to reopen the vexed abortion... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/amanda-knox-emerges-as-a-model-of-protesting/87515/ Tue, 11 Oct 2011 07:50:30 EST The case of Amanda Knox presents us with not only an interesting human drama, but also raises questions of comparative international criminal law. Italy is not generally regarded as, and does not hold itself out as, any great paragon of jurisprudence. It has few famous jurists and no particular following among legal academics or jurisconsults. Yet its judiciary’s laudable willingness to revisit Ms. Knox’s case with fresh eyes suggests that other nations might examine Italy’s methods. Ms. Knox... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/historic-force-of-new-york-city-is-expressed/87491/ Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:22:07 EST Having just spent four pleasant months in New York City, it was my misfortune to have to leave just before the opening of two historic sites that demonstrate the longstanding, dramatic importance of that city. The relocation and renovation of Alexander Hamilton’s house, the Grange, reminds us that New York has been an influential city in the world since before Napoleon was emperor of the French. The house was built in 1802, two years before Hamilton died in the still hotly debated duel with... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/back-to-prison-one-does-what-one-must/87474/ Mon, 5 Sep 2011 17:14:01 EST Though I suspect many readers are as bored with the subject as I am, I yield to a commissioning editor’s request for some reflections on returning to prison. Having spent 29 months in a federal prison already, I know what to expect. I have seen the immediate future, and it doesn’t work very well; but it is survivable. Like any trip of any duration, it requires a lot of wrapping up of pending matters. Packing is not a problem, since I am not allowed to bring anything in except eyeglasses and a... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/let-the-fall-of-gadhafi-embolden-america/87461/ Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:39:57 EST The war about to end in Libya, at least the anti-Gadhafi part of it, is one of the most unusual in modern history. It began as a rebellion that the regime appeared it could probably, narrowly, suppress. French author and very public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy visited Benghazi, Libya’s second city and the seat of the rebellion, and telephoned the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and told him: “French flags are being flown out of the windows of Benghazi, and if France doesn’t assist the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/buffett-squandering-his-chance/87454/ Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:21:04 EST I am far from an iconoclast, but I am getting a little weary of Warren Buffett’s posturing as a social democrat. He is a brilliant investor and a pretty good aphorist, and his shtick as friendly, folksy Uncle Warren, the Sage of Omaha, though a tired routine, has been an effective one. But he is an extremely wealthy man because he is a relentlessly hardball operator. His masquerade as a public-policy expert is starting to resemble nothing so much as the antics of entertainers who try to... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/editorials/after-christie-time-to-focus-on-those-who-are/87511/ Fri, 7 Oct 2011 05:38:42 EST As I started to write this piece, Republicans and Democrats were aquiver with apprehension about whether New Jersey governor Chris Christie would seek the Republican presidential nomination. I wrote that if he did, he would be seeking to duplicate the feat of perhaps the president he least resembles in all of American history: Woodrow Wilson, who successfully sought the presidency after just one term as New Jersey’s governor. And then, of course, Christie declared he would not be a candidate... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/america-has-chosen-a-good-time-for-its-first/87438/ Thu, 28 Jul 2011 07:19:26 EST It has never been believable to me, and still is not, that the United States would hit its debt ceiling and suddenly be without any ability to borrow or to pay the running costs of the U.S. government beyond incoming cash. In that scenario, it could pay its bills without borrowing to do so, effectively spinning the presses, though in fact checks would continue to be issued and would effectively increase the money supply and inflate the currency, a model often followed in Africa and Latin... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/death-throes-of-europe-more-serious-than-americas/87399/ Sun, 19 Jun 2011 06:43:34 EST My column last week described the shocking dimensions of America’s economic collapse. But much of the rest of the developed world is faring no better. Japan is magnificent in its stoicism in the face of earthquake, tidal wave and nuclear disintegration; the unflinching durability of that noble and ancient people. But their dignity and virtue will not be translated into a resumption of economic growth — not until voters find a way to overturn the country’s collective, ponderous leadership... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/national/radical-solutions-beckon-as-second-dip/87060/ Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:08:16 EST As one whose recollections of the American presidency go back to the august, relatively tranquil, unchallenged majesty of the terms of General Dwight D. Eisenhower — and of the respected ex-presidents living in that era, Herbert C. Hoover and Harry S. Truman — I can only look with dismay and amazement at what has happened to that great office. It is now clear that this marked the end of a golden age of the U.S. presidency. The United States now is in a shockingly deteriorated condition. It is... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/canada-emerges-as-a-moral-leader-by-standing-up/87380/ Sun, 5 Jun 2011 07:16:09 EST As befits a modest country unaccustomed to leading the world other than by homogenized measurements of the quality of life, Canada seems not to have noticed that Stephen Harper has kicked off his new term as head of a majority government with the assumption of the moral leadership of the world (in the usual unobtrusive Canadian way); and even more astoundingly, has done so by successfully contradicting the president of the United States. Canadian prime ministers have only rarely publicly taken... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/us-emerges-as-an-appeasement-power/87369/ Sun, 29 May 2011 22:21:35 EST Contrary to the famous advice of Franklin D. Roosevelt in his State of the Union message in 1941 — “We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal would preach the ‘ism’ of appeasement” — the United States is now effectively an appeasement power. Because it is so helplessly dependent on imported oil from unfriendly places (unlike Canada), and the American public is so cranky and churlish about paying what other countries pay for imported petroleum products, and... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/editorials/world-agape-as-america-runs-over-the-debt-cliff/87385/ Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:37:31 EST Considering the vulnerability of this administration’s record and its low standing in the polls, and the parlous condition of the country by almost any measurement, the ostentatious confidence with which the president and his entourage have kicked off their reelection campaign, and the sluggish and sometimes slapstick start of the Republicans, have been surprising. The fact that the campaigns are overtly beginning 18 months before Election Day — and are expected to cost up to $2 billion for the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/obituaries/marriage-of-william-kate-may-be-set-down-as/87311/ Sat, 23 Apr 2011 08:21:08 EST Since the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton is the first, first-time wedding of a British royal who has a serious prospect of being the monarch in nearly 30 years, and only the fourth in the last century, it is natural that it would generate some interest. There seems to have been some sniggering that the couple are unexciting, and even a few assumptions of loftiness that the bride is not in Debrett’s (the almanac of British peerage, baronetage and knightage). I cannot claim to have... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obama-is-beckoned-to-take-a-step-backward-by/87303/ Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:00:59 EST There is something faintly nostalgic about former U.S. national security advisor Brent Scowcroft’s Financial Times op-ed, published Wednesday, calling for President Obama to “broker a new Mideast Peace.” The man, the media and the message are all, as Hillary Clinton would say, “so yesterday.” It’s a little like watching vintage films from the era when American leaders were first “brokering peace” in the Mideast, such as American Graffiti or The Graduate. Brent Scowcroft was the U.S. national... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/arts/heroism-of-a-king-captured-on-film-in-the-movie/87191/ Sat, 8 Jan 2011 11:27:02 EST “The King’s Speech” is, as advertised, a riveting view, even for those who might have no special interest in the history so vividly described in this new film. King George VI always has been one of the 20th century’s most uplifting examples of rising to the task. He was thoroughly overshadowed by his glamorous brother David, King Edward VIII; and his natural shyness was intensified by a paralyzing stammer. He actively wished not to be king, and would have gotten his wish had David’s liaison... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/a-radical-restoration-of-sound-money-and-fiscal/87302/ Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:46:38 EST There is finally some progress toward deficit reduction, more than two years after the dawn of the era of trillion-dollar annual budget deficits stretching far ahead. The administration was astoundingly late giving any indication of taking the issue seriously. Paul Volcker, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner, from their execution of previous positions, were all well qualified to see the dangers of such immense deficits, yet the administration stalled for nearly two years waiting for the... CONRAD BLACK http://www.nysun.com/opinion/american-becoming-a-helpless-giant-with-polices/87259/ Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:15:44 EST An observer is entitled to wonder if this administration has taken leave of its senses. I have often written here that it might do better at some point, but it has been in office for 26 months and its policy record is a shambles. It has given precisely no indication of what it proposes to do about the trillion-dollar-plus deficits it is serenely racking up and projecting. The latest budget, in lockstep with its precedents, is a farcical mockery of prudent management: It forecasts no...