The Kensington Review

16 July 2004

Latest Commentary:
Senate GOP Botches Gay Marriage Vote -- The Republicans in the Senate tried to pin the Democrats down on the issue of gay marriage on Wednesday, and in the process, they proved that they haven't got the unity needed to make the issue work. The idea was to force a vote on an amendment to the Constitution banning single-sex unions and make Senators Kerry and Edwards vote up or down. Instead, they didn't have the votes to close debate, didn't have a majority, and look like a bunch of amateurs -- usually the Democrats' role.

Butler Report Blames No One for Intelligence Failures -- Lord Butler's report on the failings of the British intelligence community in the period preceding the attack on Iraq came to a very British conclusion. In essence, it says, "mistakes were made, no one is responsible for making them, and the country ought to just move on." The real question, of course, was beyond the remit of the report: "Did the Blair government decide on war first and then use the intelligence services to provide a pretext?"

SEC Votes for Rule Proposal to Regulate Hedge Funds -- The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 on Wednesday to consider rules to get more information out of hedge funds and to get their managers to register with the SEC. Cynthia Glassman, a Republican-appointee to the Commission and one of the two "no" votes, said, "Here we are with a solution without a clearly articulated problem." She clearly has not been paying attention to the developments in the hedge fund industry.

HBO's "Hitler's Pawn" Tells Story of Jewish Athlete in Nazi Germany -- Almost no one remembers the name Gretel Bergmann, or her married name Margaret Lambert -- certainly not the fellow at this keyboard. However, "Hitler's Pawn" premiered on HBO on Wednesday night, and it tells the story of a Jewish woman athlete who was used by the Nazi regime to claim it didn't discriminate against Jews. Once again, cable TV has proved that it can deliver valuable intelligent programming when the broadcast networks are showing people eating bugs for money ("Fear Factor").

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© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review , J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.