It is reported that “faithful adherence to legal principle sometimes [takes] a back seat to the more compelling demands of politics.” This appears to be a pointed assessment of a little-publicized controversy surrounding the pardon of four convicts by last year’s Acting Governor of Arkansas, dentist Jerry Jewell. As president pro tempore of the state...
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Cutting the Golden Key
Those who know anything of contemporary scholarship or the political philosophy of Edmund Burke know that Peter J. Stanlis clearly holds the title of “Dean of Burke Studies.” While Russell Kirk ushered in the return to Burke in America, it is Stanlis who has, more than any other scholar, sustained the revival of Burke scholarship....
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Interpreting Burke
Father Francis P. Canavan, S.J., with the publication of this his second book on Edmund Burke, clearly establishes himself as one of the most—if not the most—able interpreter of Burke’s political philosophy. Here Canavan focuses upon topics of enormous import for fathoming Burke’s political philosophy, including theological influences on Burke, his religious faith, the relationship...
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Conspiratorial Illusions
The Atlanta air is clear and sultry, yet there’s a different air in the Democratic Convention’s Women’s Caucus in the Hyatt Regency—an air of conspiratorial illusions which stifle zealotry with their cold, hard calculations, but promise victory and the triumph of total human rights. In the hallway adjacent to the meeting room I’m the recipient...