Breaking at the Chicago Sun-Times and elsewhere: The firebrand pastor of St. Sabina parish was effectively removed from his duties there Tuesday, according to a statement released by the Archdiocese of Chicago. In the statement, Cardinal Francis George says he asked the Rev. Michael Pfleger, 59, to “take leave for a couple of weeks from his pastoral duties.” The statement said Pfleger “does not believe this to be the right

Hitchens on the tale of two narratives, Feith’s and McClellan’s: Feith was and is very much identified with the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, and he certainly did not believe that Saddam Hussein was ever containable in a sanctions “box.” But he is capable of separating his views from his narrative, and this absorbing account of the interdepartmental and ideological quarrels within the Bush administration, on the Afghanistan and

take the gloves off. A new Pew Research Center poll points to a surging tide of fury, especially among white women. As recently as April, this group preferred Obama over the presumptive Republican John McCain by three percentage points. By May, McCain enjoyed an eight-point lead among white women. What’s dangerous for the Democratic Party is that, for many women, the eye of the storm has moved beyond Hillary or

Jeff Jacoby revisited: And unfortunately for Obama and his allegedly sunny politics of hope, what Mrs. Obama seems to say with grim regularity is that America is a scary, bleak, and hopeless place. Here she is, for instance, in Wisconsin: “Life for regular folks has gotten worse over the course of my lifetime, through Republican and Democratic administrations. It hasn’t gotten much better.” And in South Carolina: America is “just

Not of Obama, in this case, of whom Karl treats, below, but of Oprah.  Oso Famoso of the Catholic blog, “You Are Cephas,” describes Oprah’s endorsed spiritual practice “Gnosticism rehashed for the American housewife.” Oprah’s XM radio show is promoting a year long study into the New Age Cult Book “A Course in Miracles.” Each day for 365 days the listeners will receive one lesson from the book. For example,

Stanley Kurtz is discovering you cannot take the Trinity church out of Barack Obama: Obama shared [the Rev. Jeremiah] Wright’s rejection of black “assimilation.” Obama also shared Wright’s suspicion of the traditional American ethos of individual self-improvement and the pursuit of “middle-classness.” In common with Wright, Obama had deep misgivings about America’s criminal justice system. And with the exception of their direct attacks on whites, Obama largely approved of his

Former President Bill Clinton today unleashed a salty stream of epithets to describe former New York Times reporter and current Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum, calling him “sleazy,” “dishonest,” “slimy” and a “scumbag.” The former president made the comment at a local campaign event after I asked him if Purdum’s much-commented upon Vanity Fair story was weighing on his mind. Tightly gripping this reporter’s hand and refusing to let go,

Glenn Greenwald (a/k/a “Rick Ellensburg,” “Thomas Ellers,” “Ellison,” “Wilson” and “Ryan”) and Radley Balko are both atwitter over John McCain hiring the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb to be his deputy communications director, because of something Goldfarb once wrote.  Both quote him, but do not include a link included in Goldfarb’s original April 2007 blog post, about a conference call in which former Senator George Mitchell advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq: Pam Hess,

I apologize for taking up site time and space with this exchange, but it really does relate to the issue of identity politics. You may recall that many years ago in the midst of financial crisis Dartmouth College gave its alumni the opportunity to elect half of the trustees in exchange for a capital infusion. Now the Board, shocked by the election of a number of petition trustees not selected

On Iraq, Excitable Andy has been “trying to understand better: the surprising success (after a rocky start) of the Iraqi Army in Basra, the neutralization of the worst parts of the Sadr forces in Sadr City, increasing success in Mosul, and four-year lows in sectarian violence.”  Apparently, he’s been busy for the last ten months and confused by Iranian propaganda. Sully now frets that Barack Obama must not be caught