Jacob laksin biography

Jacob Laksin is the managing editor of Front-Page Magazine and coatuhor of One-Party Classroom.
Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine.
Experience: United States Attorneys' Offices · Education: Fordham University School.

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Jacob Laksin: Review of Andrew C. McCarthy's Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad

Aug 21, 2008

by Cliopatria

[Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine. He is a 2007 Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellow. His e-mail is jlaksin@gmail.com.]

Before he was the notorious Blind Sheikh, the spiritual advisor and instigator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, and a convicted terrorist in his own right, Omar Abdel Rahman was a guest of the American government. Between 1986 and 1989, the Egyptian-born Rahman applied at least four times for a U.S. tourist visa (such visas typically last 90 days). Already a credentialed militant, he had in 1987 earned a place on the State Department’s terrorist watch list for his fatwa, years earlier, urging the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and for his relentless preaching of jihadist violence. But only once did the U.S. refuse him a visa. By then, it was too late.

Andrew McCarthy was the lead federal prosecutor of the World Trade Center bombing conspiracy trial in 1995 and the man who would put Rahman aw

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Jacob Laksin: The Times vs. Rudy

[Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for FrontPage Magazine. His e-mail is jlaksin@gmail.com.]

You would expect the New York Times to come down against Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, it’s a safe bet that American liberalism’s paper of record would find little to admire in any Republican candidate for the presidency. What you might not expect is that, months before primary season, the paper would commit its full resources to flinging dirt at the Republican candidate whose views, at least on social issues, most approximate its own.

Yet, in recent months, the Times on its front page has been waging all-out war against the former mayor. The opening salvo was launched in May, when the paper ran a piece airing allegations that Giuliani was responsible for the illnesses developed by emergency-response workers toiling at Ground Zero after September 11. The paper’s own reporting indicated that there was little substance to the accusations. For instance, in the days following the attacks, Giuliani stressed that emergency personnel were required to wear masks at Gr

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Jacob Laksin: Jimmy Carter’s War Against the Jews

When James Earl Carter left office in 1981, after suffering a decisive defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, the popular verdict held that he was a decent man, if a dismal president. At home, Carter had shown a persistent inability to address domestic concerns like double-digit inflation and soaring interest rates, attributing them and other problems to an American “malaise.” Abroad, he struggled with a number of foreign-policy embarrassments, most notably the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the seizure of American hostages in Iran. Together, these events engendered a crisis of confidence in Carter himself and defined his administration as one of the least competent in modern American history.

The ensuing decades have entrenched this view of his failed presidency. But they have also exacted a toll on his personal reputation, which he and his supporters hoped to save from the wreckage of his administration. Carter set out to be an exemplary ex-president—indeed, to redefine that role into one involving a level of moral activism a