David Keene
Columns by David Keene
KEENE: A better way to help the dangerously mentally ill
Following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., more than a year ago, Republicans sought out and asked the only clinical psychologist in the House to look into the connection between the sorts of mass shootings that have plagued the country in recent years and the state of the nation's mental health care system. Published April 21, 2014
KEENE: Familiar refrains from Britain’s ‘Tea Party’
Americans have the Tea Party, which isn't a party at all, but British establishmentarians are worried about a similar movement that is an actual party. Published April 17, 2014
KEENE: The Balkans, Ukraine and the law of unintended consequences
The answer George Will gave several years ago when asked what he thinks of "neoconservatives" has stuck with many ever since. Published April 15, 2014
KEENE: Villainizing the Koch brothers
Back in the late '70s, Alan Baron, a liberal, labor union-loving McGovernite; Ken Bode, then of the New Republic; and I hosted a biweekly poker game that regularly included three Republicans, three Democrats and one journalist. Published April 7, 2014
KEENE: Schumer media shield law is license to censor
When President Obama and New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer join forces to ostensibly protect freedom of speech and the press, it's time for believers in the First Amendment to take to the battlements. Published March 31, 2014
KEENE: Obama needs foreign policy from Jimmy Carter
Most Americans still believe the nation is in recession, massive numbers say the United States is on what pollsters call "the wrong track," and President Obama's signature health care program is in what in polite company might be referred to as "disarray," but compared to his foreign policy, he's doing a smashingly good job here at home. Published March 24, 2014
KEENE: Explaining David Jolly’s win in Florida special election
Now that the smoke has cleared, it's time to look at the lessons to be learned from the Republican victory in last week's 13th Congressional District special election in Florida. Published March 17, 2014
KEENE: At CPAC, rebuilding that shining city upon a hill
The 41st annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, closed on Saturday evening after having dominated the political news for three days. Published March 10, 2014
KEENE: How CPAC has grown over 4 decades
The first Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, convened in Washington 41 years ago drawing a little more than 100 conservative activists from around the country who found themselves enthralled by a keynote address delivered by California's Republican governor, Ronald Reagan. Published March 3, 2014
KEENE: Taiwan and Mainland China forge uneasy coexistence
Taiwan or, more correctly, the Republic of China on Taiwan, is a sort of Asian Israel. Published February 25, 2014
KEENE: Free speech for me, but not for thee
Liberals back in the day liked to champion free speech and the First Amendment rights — even of those with whom they disagreed or found obnoxious. Published February 17, 2014
KEENE: CBS News’ Marty Plissner was a pioneer in exit polls
Marty was the man who invented modern political coverage and developed a formula using sample precincts, and later, he created sophisticated exit polls to "call" elections even before the votes were counted and, more controversially, sometimes before the polls had even closed. Published February 12, 2014
KEENE: The deja vu of the lame duck
Presidential confidant David Axelrod last week suggested that many Democratic candidates running this year will want to distance themselves from President Obama. Published February 10, 2014
KEENE: Driving jobs, investment to greener pastures
Last week, it was announced that the Argentine peso has collapsed, that Beretta is expanding (not in Maryland, but is moving much of its operation to Tennessee), and that foreign investment in France has fallen some 77 percent since that nation's socialist government declared war on the country's rich and successful. Published February 4, 2014
KEENE: Obama turns authoritarian, rather than working with Congress
Not long ago, reporters asked White House spokesman Jay Carney to react to Iran's new "moderate" president Hassan Rouhani's tweet that as a result of his negotiations with the United States, "world powers surrendered to Iran's national will." Mr. Carney, speaking for the Obama administration, had an answer, "It doesn't matter what they say. It matters what they do." Published January 28, 2014
KEENE: Sen. Tom Coburn, a tireless foe of wasteful spending
As the bipartisan omnibus budget bill was being signed into law last week, Oklahoma's Sen. Tom Coburn announced that he will retire without finishing his term. Mr. Coburn's decision had nothing to do with the bill, but its authors — those who stuffed it with goodies, and senators and congressmen who will have to defend it to the press and their constituents — probably wish he was already winging his way back to Oklahoma. Published January 20, 2014
KEENE: Obama’s drives to stoke class warfare to win midterm elections
The mantra from the administration, like the rantings of the "Occupy" crowd and the new finger-pointing quasi-Marxist mayor of New York City, is that in today's United States, it is impossible to get ahead unless one is born rich, works on Wall Street or finds some other way to profit from the misery of others. Published January 13, 2014
KEENE: When ideology replaces reporting, truth suffers
Conservatives spend a lot of time whining about what many see as the partisan bias of what we like to call the "mainstream media," but few grasp just how far ideologically committed journalists might be willing to go to help those they admire. Published January 6, 2014
KEENE: Rejoining the fight for conservatism
Bob Barr is quite a character. In a career that has included a stint with the CIA, service as a United States attorney during the Reagan years, eight years as a member of Congress who was an early critic of President Clinton and one of the first to call on his colleagues to impeach the president, a columnist and commentator and tilter against both liberal shibboleths and windmills, Mr. Barr has made a mark wherever he's been. Published January 5, 2014
KEENE: A judicial difference of opinion
Basically, we Americans are a practical rather than an ideological people. We are interested in what's right, but almost obsessed with what works. The two district court decisions that greeted us this Christmas on the constitutionality and practical utility of the National Security Agency's continuing drive to collect all available information on each of us reflects this difference. Published December 30, 2013
