Why Words Matter

In criticizing Barack Obama today, Andy McCarthy makes the claim that Barack Obama wants to end prison sentences for violent offenders.Not to be a broken record, but it’s worth recalling that Obama gave a rave review to former terrorist Bill Ayers’s polemic against the criminal justice system, A Kind and Just Parent. More radical than even the Warren Court, ...

British Burglars Could Go Free!

The United Kingdom is seriously considering doing away with prison sentences for scores of "lesser" crimes, Home Affairs Correspondent Tom Whitehead reports for the Daily Express. Hundreds of thousands of crooks could escape jail every year under the proposals by advisers to the Lord Chief Justice. Those sentenced to short, sharp shock jail terms of less than 12 months for “less ...

Meaningful Bloggers

James Q. Wilson asks of himself, "Can I Be a Meaningful Blogger?" and quickly demonstrates that, alas, he can not. Or, at least, will not. Wilson is an extremely bright and accomplished fellow. Certainly, he's ten times the social scientist that I'll ever be. But perhaps the things which made him so successful as a scholar have impeded ...

Military Interrogators Urged to Destroy Evidence

Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, who is serving as the defense attorney for Canadian citizen Omar Khadr's war crimes trial (previously discussed on OTB here) has divulged that the Pentagon has been urging interrogators in Guantanamo Bay to destroy all of their notes regarding their interrogation of detainees.The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they ...

Iraq and Afghanistan Winnable Wars

Anthony Cordesman, a longtime Iraq War skeptic and administration critic, argued in yesterday's Washington Post that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are "winnable." It's a tightly written piece that defies excerpting but here is the crux of it: No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are ...

Barack Obama’s Cult of Personality (Updated)

In a column entitled "Hate Springs Eternal," Paul Krugman decries the rancor of the Democratic primary contest, which he likens to the style of Richard Nixon. I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that ...

Greetings

While James and Kim head to Aruba to try and straighten out the criminal justice system down there, I will be helping to fill in. For those unfamiliar with me, I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at Troy University (where James and I were colleagues for several years) and have been blogging at PoliBlog for about two weeks less ...

Jose Padilla Convicted on Terrorist Charges

Jose Padilla has finally been found guilty of major terrorism charges. Jose Padilla was convicted of federal terrorism support charges Thursday after being held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant in a case that came to symbolize the Bush administration's zeal to stop homegrown terror. Padilla, a U.S. citizen from Chicago, was once accused of being part of an ...

Duke Settles with Lacrosse Players

Duke University has agreed to a settlement with the lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape and then hung out to dry by university administrators and faculty. Duke University has reached a settlement with each of the three former lacrosse players and their families. The university made the announcement this afternoon. According to a press release issued by Duke, ...

Unnecessary Scandal

Charles Krauthammer argues that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign or be fired sooner rather than later for his handling of the U.S. Attorney firing mess. It's not a question of probity, but of competence. Gonzales has allowed a scandal to be created where there was none. That is quite an achievement. He had a two-foot putt and he muffed it. How ...