huntley
Steve Huntley biography
Steve Huntley is a commentary columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a member of its editorial board.
He served as editor of the editorial page …
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Looming exit from Afghanistan raises questions
The wind-down of the Afghan war is starting. War-weary Americans are ready for it, and President Barack Obama has made no secret that he wants out. The question that remains is whether more than a decade of fighting there has ended the threat of Islamist …Read More
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Clinton vs. Bush all over again?
Incredible as it may seem to Americans weary of political battles, speculation already is running rampant over the 2016 presidential election. Perhaps as incredible is the possibility the presidential balloting a decade and a half into the 21st century could turn out to be a …Read More
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Defense nominee Hagel has unorthodox world views
You get judged by your inner circle. Barack Obama’s nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense is stirring up a commotion because of what it might say about the foreign policy and national security thinking of the president for his second …Read More
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D.C. political spats make future look grim
‘Magnanimous in victory, gracious in defeat” advises the old saying, but the last election produced little of either as was all too evident in the bitter, drawn-out “fiscal cliff” negotiations. President Barack Obama demonstrated no magnanimity after the November balloting that swept him into a …
No one can make sense of senseless school shooting
Confronted with a monstrous crime like the Newtown massacre, an enduring and very understandable human reaction is to try to make some sort of sense of it. If we can understand it at some level, we can search for solutions to keep it from ever …
U.S. security threats growing
A constant theme of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign was that the tide of war was receding. Maybe that’s true in the narrow sense of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but the world remains in turmoil, and old threats to American security remain while new …
Only gullible see ‘moderate’ Hamas
It keeps cropping up in news coverage of Hamas leader Khaleh Mashaal — he’s something of a moderate by Palestinian standards, or he is “known as a relative pragmatist inside the movement,” as the AP put it. None of that was on display Saturday as …
Republicans fall into another trap
Democrats must be chortling and rubbing their hands in glee — they got the Republican Party to shoot itself in the foot again. The party that in the Nov. 6 election managed to alienate Hispanics, single women, young voters and African Americans can now add …
GOP needs to shed image of ‘party of the rich’
Congressional Republicans are stuck between a rock and a hard place: Their instincts on taxes are right as economic policy but wrong politically. The top political priority for the GOP must be throwing off the mantle of “the party of the rich.” That means giving …
India deals swiftly with terrorists
It was a small news item the other day and you might have missed it. India executed the one surviving gunman from the Mumbai terrorist attack four years ago. India’s swift but fair delivery of justice by hanging a murderer who helped kill 160 people …
Hamas’ victory claims fizzle
Hamas claims to have emerged from the latest Gaza battle as the strongest voice of Palestinian aspirations, however debased those ambitions are by their genocidal roots. But any such political gain is offset by the stunning technological and military prowess demonstrated by Israel. The Jewish …
Turkey’s wrong turn
Anyone looking for hopeful signs of the role democratically elected Islamist governments might play in international affairs will find disappointment in how Turkey irresponsibly exploited the Israel-Hamas fighting with bluster, lies and fanatical characterizations of the Jewish state. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called …
Palestinian terror must be stopped
The apologists for Palestinian terror targeting innocent civilians are quick to charge — when Israel is finally forced to respond to the threat to its citizens — that the Jewish state uses “disproportionate force” in retaliating against its enemies. It’s nonsense that ignores the realities …
Blame hatred of Israel for attacks
Over the next few days you’re going to hear a lot of analysis and commentary offering up this nuanced explanation or that complex interpretation for the latest round of Israel-Hamas fighting in the Gaza Strip and the latest drive by the Palestinian Authority for enhanced …
A ‘fat tax’ lesson from Denmark
‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” goes the famous line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that has become shorthand for affairs gone wrong. A rancid odor emanating from Denmark tells us something about taxes and politicians. You may have read that the little country has …
Obama needs to step up and make nice with Republicans
Preventing $500 billion in tax increases and $1.2 trillion in spending cuts from pushing the nation over the “fiscal cliff” into the abyss of another recession will require President Barack Obama to do something he never showed any inclination to do in his first term: …
Tactics — not views — doomed Romney
What went wrong and what can be done about it? Those are questions agonizing Republicans after President Barack Obama’s re-election and the failure of the GOP to pick up seats — it lost a couple — in the U.S. Senate in an election season that …
Huntley: Dems had energy needed to win
The biggest winner: President Barack Obama, liberal Democrats and their coalition of women, Latinos, African Americans and young voters. The conventional wisdom was that the energy was on the Republican side, but Obama’s team proved that wasn’t so. $100 million doesn’t go as far as …Read More
Close race will fuel bitterness
Whew! Can anyone recall a nail-biting, down-to-the-wire election like this one between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney? Who’ll win in Tuesday’s voting? Who knows? Predictions are all over the place — from a landslide to a squeaker that will keep us …Read More
Romney is best bet for Hispanics
It is a political truth universally acknowledged that the Republican Party needs to appeal to Hispanics if it wants to have a bright future in an America of changing demographics. But could it also be true that Hispanics have a compelling self-interest in supporting GOP …Read More