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Dispatch from California by William Rusher Posted Feb 16, 2004 In my last dispatch of the goings-on in California, I reported that the Democrats who control the legislature were stonewalling Gov. Schwarzenegger's requests for a $15-billion bond issue to pay for their previous profligacy. They were also blocking a constitutional amendment that would prevent similar behavior in the future by allowing increases in state expenditures only for inflation and population growth. I predicted that the governor would get both, however, by putting them on the ballot as popular initiatives in November and having the voters pass them over the legislature's...

Politics Dispatch from California by William Rusher Posted Feb 16, 2004 Rusher is a leading conservative figure who was publisher of National Review from 1957-1988 In my last dispatch of the goings-on in California, I reported that the Democrats who control the legislature were stonewalling Gov. Schwarzenegger's requests for a $15-billion bond issue to pay for their previous profligacy. They were also blocking a constitutional amendment that would prevent similar behavior in the future by allowing increases in state expenditures only for inflation and population growth. I predicted that the governor would get both, however, by putting them on the...

Will Bush survive attacks from the right? Posted: February 12, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. The disgruntled mutterings about President Bush in conservative circles are getting too loud to ignore. From National Review to The Heritage Foundation, not to mention such libertarian redoubts as The Cato Institute, the grumbling is reaching impressive levels. It doesn't (yet) amount to outright rebellion. The protesters are still on board for November; few of them are seriously threatening to stay home on Election Day and let John Kerry waltz into the White House. But it is fair to say that, in the opinion...

Globaloney Until recently, the prophets of global warming had the public debate on the subject pretty much to themselves. They had managed to convince the custodians of public opinion, in the media and elsewhere, that the vast majority of the world's scientists agreed that the world's climate was getting warmer, and that a substantial part of the reason for this was an increase in "greenhouse gases" (such as carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere, caused in significant part by human economic activity. The results would allegedly be catastrophic over the course of the next few decades, and the only solution was...

Who's lying? Posted: January 8, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. As you have probably noticed, the words "lying," "liar" and their cognates are being tossed around pretty indiscriminately by the liberals these days – an indication of just how much they hate the Bush administration, and how eager they are to bring it down. But it may be useful to examine some of these superheated charges and see just how valid they are. I take as my text a couple of paragraphs by Ruth Rosen, a bush-league liberal columnist whose vaporings appear every so often in the San Francisco...

A peek at 2004 Posted: January 1, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. So the curtain goes up on 2004 and, being human, we long to know what will happen in the new year. The only dependable prediction is that it will surprise us. From the standpoint of the present, the future always looks like a featureless projection of the past – the one thing that it never is. The most cautious political calculations will turn out to be wildly off base. Events that seem, in prospect, unlikely to occur will occur when least expected. No wonder the Democrats refuse...

Those 'special interests' Posted: December 25, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. If there is one thing the nine Democratic dwarves have discovered in the course of their interminable debates, it's that nothing rouses the Democratic faithful like the denunciation of "special interests." On one side, they tell their audiences, are the "regular people" like you. On the other are – and here their lips curl and their voices develop a sneering edge – the "special interests." Just who these special interests are is left unspecified. If questioned, they will name some easy corporate target like Enron, but that defeats...

The Democrats' dilemma Posted: December 18, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. By dragging Saddam Hussein out of his hidey-hole in a farm hut south of Tikrit, the 4th Infantry Division has inflicted a severe blow to the Democrats' thesis that everything is going badly in Iraq. Counting the number of schools that have reopened has never been a very convincing response to the almost daily reports of one or two American soldiers killed by terrorists. But the capture of Saddam is a devastating blow to the whole concept of resistance to the American occupation of Iraq, and here at...

California's next hurdle: The Legislature Posted: December 11, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. There was never any serious hope that the Democrats in the legislature would consent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan for pulling California out of the hole they have dug for the state in the past five years. Both the Senate and the Assembly are securely in the pockets of the powerful special interests their Democratic members were largely elected to serve: the state employees' unions, the Indian tribes that own or want to start casinos, and, above all, the California Teachers Association. The Democratic legislators (and,...

Speaking with forked tongue Posted: November 27, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. Far be it from me to contend that Republican politicians don't occasionally take liberties with the truth. They do, and they should be held accountable for these deceptions. But now it's the Democrats who are playing fast and loose with the truth in three major areas of public policy, and American voters deserve to know about it. In all three cases, Democratic politicians count on most people being too stupid to spot the deception. The first case involves what sounds like a shocking statistic, ideally delivered with...

There has been a lot of talk recently about Hillary Clinton's political game plan. Will she run for president in 2004? Wait until 2008? Is she backing Gen. Wesley Clark, or some other stalking horse, for the 2004 nomination? Might she take the vice presidential spot on his team, expecting him to lose but polishing her own credentials for the top spot next time? Or does she have some even more devious scheme in mind? Actually, Clinton's game plan, though suitably Machiavellian, is not all that complicated. Sen. Clinton wants to be president of the United States. She has...

Hillary's game plan Posted: October 30, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Newspaper Enterprise Assn. There has been a lot of talk recently about Hillary Clinton's political game plan. Will she run for president in 2004? Wait until 2008? Is she backing Gen. Wesley Clark, or some other stalking horse, for the 2004 nomination? Might she take the vice presidential spot on his team, expecting him to lose but polishing her own credentials for the top spot next time? Or does she have some even more devious scheme in mind? Actually, Clinton's game plan, though suitably Machiavellian, is not all that complicated....

In the last two decades, politics in many Western nations has been enlivened by the appearance of a new political entity that calls itself the Green Party. The implication, reinforced by the rhetoric of its spokesmen, is that environmentalism is one of its major concerns. In a number of European states, it also has a mildly socialist agenda, being hostile to business and opposed (for example) to the U.S. attack on Iraq. In Germany, and to a lesser extent in some other European countries, it has bagged enough votes in general elections to insist on being included in governing coalitions...

The Democratic spinners have been busy trying to put the best face possible on the landslide recall of Gray Davis and the impressive election of Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor, but it's tough going. Maybe, they suggest, American voters are angry at all chief executives facing big budget deficits – in which case they may be ready to "recall" President Bush in 2004. And anyway, Schwarzenegger is far from being a typical Republican: He is pro-choice, pro-gay rights and pro-gun control. Save for the governorship, California is still solidly in Democratic hands: They control both houses of the legislature, hold both...

As most people know, the objective of the political opposition in a democracy is to attack the political leader by raising "issues" that gradually chip away at his image until he is reduced to bite-sized bits suitable to be fed to fishes. The Democrats were making slow but reasonable progress at deconstructing George Bush in this way until Sept. 11 came along and rendered him – as a strong war leader – practically unassailable. Now, however, in the aftermath of the Iraq war, the failure (thus far) to find weapons of mass destruction has opened up a new and fruitful...

It's a wonder that no one has thought of it before. Though it's likely that others have and were either talked out of it or simply ordered to forget it. But Lisa McClelland, 15 and a student at Freedom High School in Oakley, Calif., launched the idea, which has attracted the national media's attention. Now the fat is in the fire, and where it will all end (in the words of a famous parody of Time magazine) knows God. Lisa's idea was to start a Caucasian Club at her high school. After all, the school already boasts a Black Student...

The basic trouble with democracy is it forces candidates to be forever on the lookout for new "services" they can pledge to provide for their presumably greedy constituents. The dirty little secret, of course (never mentioned during the campaign), is these services will cost money, which will have to be provided by the taxpayers, since government doesn't have a nickel it can call its own. Then (if and when the services are provided, and taxes have to be raised to pay for them) the politician can complain loudly and virtuously about voters who "demand" services and then protest about having...

<p>William Rusher isn't a household political name. But he will go down in history as one of the important architects of the post-World War II conservative political movement that ultimately put Ronald Reagan in the White House.</p> <p>Q: What is your definition of conservatism, and has it changed much in your lifetime?</p>

<p>The conservative movement has scored historic gains but has yet to achieve several of its basic goals.</p> <p>That's the verdict of some of its founding fathers (and one important mother).</p> <p>"We won the battle against communism, but I guess we've largely lost the battle against big government," says Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, 79, who defied conventional wisdom by leading a women's crusade that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment in the mid-1970s.</p>

As a San Francisco resident, I have a front-row seat to the extravaganza that passes for liberal politics in this huge and astonishing state. The general attitude of its Democratic Party was summed up a few years ago when one of its members in the Assembly was reproached by a Republican colleague. "Don't you realize," the Republican said, "that passing anti-business legislation just drives businesses out of the state?" The Democrat giggled, "What do we care? It's Republicans who are leaving." Using such strategies, the Democrats recently achieved something close to Nirvana in Sacramento. They hold all of the statewide...