A Triumph of Moral and Political Leadership
By Yuval Levin
Posted: Saturday, November 24, 2007
The president deserves enormous credit for standing firm on the ethical principle here, against massive political pressure. That was important and right in itself, and it also did help to nudge stem cell research in the right direction. But as a matter of moral and political leadership, the first part was much more important than the second, and was also what made the second possible. Science can be flexible, ethics must be firm, and the combination can help avert a collision.  [Read More]

A Stem Cell Win-Win
By Yuval Levin
Posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The news embargo now seems to have been on what is likely to rank as the most important development in stem cell science since the first derivation of human embryonic stem cells in 1998. Two prominent scientific journals--Science and Cell--are each today publishing papers that demonstrate extraordinary success with a technique called "somatic cell reprogramming."  [Read More]

Nasty and Small
Multiculturalism and Britain's "Big Brother" Controversy
Posted: Wednesday, January 24, 2007
For several turbulent days last week, the BBC helped to fix Great Britain's distressed gaze on an "international incident" between the governments of India and the U.K. The British prime minister condemned an alleged home-grown atrocity against an Indian national in the most somber tones. The Indian minister for external affairs called it “unacceptable in any civilized society.” Angry mobs gathered in cities across India to burn figures in effigy. The incident, of course, was the racist row orchestrated by two residents on the reality show Celebrity Big Brother. That such a petty, fribbling exchange could animate public discourse for days on end says something about the success of militant multiculturalism.  [Read More]

Iran Happens
Posted: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
One the one hand, we are faced with a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, nuclear blackmail and terrorist chaos at the heart of the world's Persian Gulf oil supply, and terrorist-planted nuclear weapons in America's cities. On the other hand, we can choose an economically disruptive war with Iran that will alienate us from the world, push us to and beyond our military limits, and that even then may not even succeed.  [Read More]

More on Edsall
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Yet strip away the tendentious and embarrassing obtuseness about the real motivations of conservatives and you will find in Edsall the best effort by a liberal Democrat to date to come to terms with the forces driving American politics today.  [Read More]

The Politics of Apology
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
When dealing with Islamists determined to knock heads with the West, apologies for colonial history or past American foreign policy don't work.  If anything, apologies -- especially anxious apologies for wrongs that were never even committed by us -- convey an impression of weakness that simply invite further defiance.  [Read More]

Egg Tax
By Stanley Kurtz
Posted: Wednesday, September 27, 2006
If you think there's no such thing as a slippery slope, have a look at this chilling piece by William Saletan, "Better Than Sex." Reading Saletan's account of embryo eugenics, it's hard not to think of Gattaca. At any rate, it's tough to deny that there are legitimate concerns about a slippery slope from biotech to some very troubling practices.   [Read More]

Happy 20th Anniversary, Justice Scalia!
By M. Edward Whelan III
Posted: Monday, September 25, 2006
This week marks the twentieth anniversary of Justice Antonin Scalia's arrival on the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Scalia, writes EPPC President Ed Whelan, "by virtue of the force and clarity of his positions, has in a very real sense been the defining figure in American constitutional law over the past two decades."  [Read More]