Chicago Sun-Times

Obama not cautious enough on Iran

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 02:16:38 -0500

The man President Barack Obama is pinning his hopes on for keeping the nuclear bomb out of the hands of Iran is best known for bragging about how he strung the West along with happy talk as a way for Tehran to advance its atomic agenda. It’s possible, I suppose, that this time negotiations with President Hassan Rouhani will turn out differently than the 2003 to ’05 episode that allowed Iran to complete its Isfahan uranium enrichment facility. Still, an adage comes to mind: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Rouhani claims there was …

Obama failing big on world stage

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 02:25:45 -0500

BY STEVE HUNTLEY: Much ado is being made about the charm offensive of the new president of Iran, especially at the United Nations this week. More significant is the growing evidence of the failure of the five-year charm offensive of President Barack Obama on the international stage where he had been widely expected to excel.

ObamaCare mess all Dems’ doing

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 02:16:41 -0500

The standard line from Democrats is that Congress passed ObamaCare and it’s the law of the land, end of discussion. That disguises the ugly truth about how the Affordable Care Act became law, why it’s running into so many problems, and why it is passionately hated by conservatives. Consider a little history: The Social Security Act was enacted in 1935 with three times as many GOP yes votes as nays in the Senate and five times more yes ballots than nos in the House. In 1965, with President Lyndon Johnson working his masterly legislative prowess, nearly half of Senate Republicans …

Tea Party hasn’t learned to govern

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 02:24:54 -0500

For months the Tea Party was viewed by America as a victim of harassment from the Internal Revenue Service. Now it’s seen as a gang of extremists shooting for a government shutdown. IRS honcho Lois Lerner, a prime suspect in the IRS persecution, must be celebrating while on her extended paid vacation, er, administrative leave. ObamaCare is imploding with evidence mounting daily that it’s destroying jobs, turning full-time work into part-time labor and threatening millions of Americans’ current health coverage, so much so that it’s provoked a revolt among the big labor unions. Tea Party members of Congress push an …

Bitter legacy of Israel peace hopes

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 02:18:31 -0500

In a speech I gave a few years ago, I talked about all the things that went wrong with the Oslo Accords aimed at achieving a durable peace arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians. Among them: The execrable murderer and terrorist Yasser Arafat was liberated from exile and allowed to return to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, venomous anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bile boiled and seethed ever after in the disputed territories, weapons flowed to Palestinian militant groups and terror cells, the best hope of a two-state solution was offered up by Israel and spurned by Arafat, who unleashed a …

Putin holds the stronger hand in Syria

Fri, 13 Sep 2013 02:23:53 -0500

After laying down a red line a year ago, Obama’s credibility, and that of the United States, was on the line. But as the crisis unfolded, even admirers saw his policy as unfocused, chaotic, muddled and, worst of all, out of step with the American people.

Time for courage in Washington

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 02:20:49 -0500

The best argument for President Barack Obama’s tough stance over Syria emerged Monday with a surprise proposal from Russia for the United Nations to take control of Syria’s chemical weapons and to destroy them. Without doubt, there would be no such development without the threat of a U.S. military strike to punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for using sarin gas to kill 1,400 men, women and children. It will take days, maybe weeks, to determine how real and how achievable this idea is. Russian President Vladimir Putin could be helping Assad buy time in his standoff with Washington. Putin could …

We must back Obama on Syria

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 02:22:02 -0500

The path to congressional approval of President Barack Obama’s request for authorization to punish Syria is messy, rocky and not a sure thing. All that will make a declaration by the Congress against Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons all the more powerful. And make no mistake, it’s a national imperative for Congress to give Obama what he wants. You could argue that Obama never should have set the red line against use of sarin gas. But he did — despite his petty, weak-kneed claim the other day that the world, not he, set the red line. His no-chemical-weapons declaration …

Call Ft. Hood attack an act of terror

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 02:14:38 -0500

BY STEVE HUNTLEY. Now that justice has been delivered to Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Hasan and he’s facing execution, it’s time for the Obama administration to deliver justice to the victims of his wretched crime.

Attack on Syria needs Congress’ OK

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 06:24:10 -0500

The best policy for a president flexing our military might is to do it with the consent of the people through their elected legislators. Obama’s previous go-it-alone war, Libya, didn’t turn out well.

Beware growing liberal witch hunt

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 06:10:30 -0500

Liberals find many dark chapters in U.S. history, and one of them was the “Red scare” era of the late 1940s and ’50s. That was the epoch of the Hollywood 10, the blacklist against artists with suspected far-left-wing leanings and people hauled before Congress to answer the question: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” These days, conservatives wonder whether they are becoming prey to a nascent 21st century version of that kind of witch hunt to delegitimize their politics. No, I’m not suggesting that there is anything near the level of intolerance …

Turkish leader’s hot air on Egypt

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 06:27:13 -0500

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is often portrayed as the model of a modern, moderate Islamist ruler. But he showed himself to be anything but moderate and more medieval than 21st century when he got around to talking about the ouster of fellow Islamist Mohamed Morsi as president of Egypt. It was, Erdogan said, the work of — who else? — Israel. Erdogan was speaking to like-minded folks, provincial leaders of his political party, when he said, “What do they say in Egypt? Democracy is not the ballot box. What is behind it? Israel. We have in our …

GOP aims to avoid 2012 primary lowlights

Sat, 21 Sep 2013 06:15:10 -0500

Hold on to your hats! — the 2016 presidential race already is heating up. Hillary Clinton is making political speeches. Sources close to Vice President Joe Biden indicate he may not cede the Democratic field to her. Fresher faces, among them New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, are biding their time. On the Republican side, Gov. Chris Christie, cruising toward a big re-election win in blue New Jersey, is letting it be known that he’s the broad-based candidate to lead the GOP to victory. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is trying to win back a big hunk …

See the rise of Egypt’s next pharoah

Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:49:38 -0500

President Barack Obama’s call for national reconciliation in Egypt fell on deaf ears for the simple reason that there is no basis for reconciliation. Egypt is locked in an existential struggle for supremacy between the radical Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and the disorganized and even disparate secular elements of society who have no other agent for their cause than the military. The bloody confrontations across Egypt have been building since Mohamed Morsi was elected president in 2010. He sought to consolidate authority in an Islamist-rooted government, granted himself unlimited powers to legislate without oversight and marginalized Egyptians who didn’t …

Government workers enjoy increasing privilege

Sat, 14 Sep 2013 06:11:17 -0500

BY STEVE HUNTLEY. Government workers were once low-paid folks with fairly nice benefits. Over the years, thanks to the growth of public employee unions, their dues-funded campaign contributions and their ballot-box clout, they enjoy generous pay, job security and pensions that are the envy of the rest of us. Retirement, sometimes early, can mean checks as high as 75 percent of their pay.

We’re terrorized without the terror

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 06:22:15 -0500

BY STEVE HUNTLEY. Let’s see if I’ve got this right: The world has been transfixed for weeks over the controversy about U.S. intelligence surveillance of phones and emails, but leaders of al-Qaida still use electronic communications to plot terrorist attacks?

What is Ft. Hood killer? A terrorist

Sat, 07 Sep 2013 06:12:34 -0500

Nearly four years after Nidal Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” and opened fire at a medical processing center at Fort Hood, Texas, he goes before a court martial Tuesday for killing 13 people and wounding 32, most of them fellow soldiers but a couple of them civilians. Against all evidence and common sense, Hasan stands accused of “workplace violence.” That’s right, workplace violence — not terrorism or “combat related” murder. It’s but one of the parade of embarrassments surrounding the handling of this case. The workplace designation by the Defense Department and the Army means the military victims have been denied …

John Kerry is showing Hillary Clinton how to do a job

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 07:38:39 -0500

He is threatening to upstage his predecessor’s resume by proving what a determined public figure can do with a post like secretary of state.