Veterans of South Carolina politics have been waiting and wondering what the last minute stunt would be leading up to Saturday’s First-in-the-South bellwether Republican primary. I predicted it would be a Confederate flag stunt and begged the Ron Paul campaign to make his positions on the War Between the States better known, early on. The...

Most people believe the history of race relations in the United States is neatly divided by geography. Those states north of the Mason-Dixon Line were paragons of equality and liberty, where race was not an issue and diversity flourished in all its glory. ...

All politics is local, said the late House Speaker

Welfare reform was supposed to discourage unmarried child­bearing. However, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently disclosed that out-of-wedlock births are at a record high. The Census Bureau also reports that, for the first time, married couples constitute less than half of ...

There was a time when National Review had standards and vauled decorum. No more. In his zeal to take down Ron Paul, David Frum has approvingly cited and linked to a piece describing Ron Paul as

Take heed, ye red-blooded American males. The police are operating a new sting designed to destroy your life. The police are planting attractive women half-naked in parks. They entice passing males, engage them in conversation, lay back, spread their legs and rest their feet on the men’s shoulders. After being as friendly and suggestive as...

The huge Democratic turnout in the Iowa Caucuses, over twice that of the GOP, and the stampede by independents to vote in the Democratic precincts, suggests that Iowa, a swing state carried by President Bush in 2004, may be lost irretrievably to the GOP in ...

“Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind.” Emerson’s couplet comes to mind as the New Year opens with Pakistan, the second largest Muslim country on Earth, in social and political chaos, trending toward a failed state with nuclear weapons. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whom the White House pressed to return home from exile...

PERSPECTIVEThe Politics of Human Interestsby Thomas Fleming VIEWSAmerica as a Proposition Nationby Clyde WilsonFacing our superstition. The Most Desirable Option by Kirkpatrick SaleReeducating for secession. What Is Wrong With Ideology?by Donald W. LivingstonThe great inversion. NEWSMoving Targetsby Daniel LarisonThe trouble with early primaries. REVIEWSTwo American Livesby Stephen B. Presser David Cannadine: Mellon: An American LifeDavid...

Good for Time. Its Person of the Year was Vladimir Putin, who has presided over the economic rebirth of his nation and reasserted Russia’s role as a great power. A first runner-up was Gen. David Petraeus, leader of the “surge” in Iraq that staved off what appeared a U.S. defeat and debacle, and helped revive...

’Twas the middle of that sacred time of year when all Americans pause to remember what is most important—Christmas Shopping Season. I had just walked through the automatic doorway of MediaPlay, out in what was then the edge of Rockford’s wasteland (the East State Street shopping corridor, which has since sprawled itself all the way...

National Review long ago ran up the white flag in the War against Christmas. Now, it is joining the other side, with Kathryn Jean Lopez echoing a reader’s complaint that Mike Huckabee’s ad wishing everyone a Merry Christmas is “offensive.” It’s hard to fathom the source of Lopez’ outrage. There is absolutely nothing preventing all...

Four weeks before New Hampshire and three weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican race has become a proxy religious war. On one side is a Baptist preacher who called homosexuality

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act are up for reauthorization again.  This process typically entails legislators tweaking the bill—a caveat here, a zinger there.  Almost always, it translates into more money. Representatives George Miller (D-CA) and Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) of the Committee ...

Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party scored an overwhelming victory in the country’s parliamentary elections last Sunday, winning almost two-thirds of the vote and 315 of the 450 seats in the Duma. The election was widely seen as a referendum on the past seven years ...

On Wednesday, November 28, at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago, Derrick Shareef pled guilty in U.S. District Court on federal charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Shareef had previously pled not guilty, ...

A nation’s cultural space is marked by its spiritual fruits and not by the frontier posts. It is possible to maintain a cultural space devoid of territory (the Jews). It is also possible to lose that space under the auspices of an ostensibly functioning state—and ...

PERSPECTIVE Freedom of Conscience by Thomas Fleming Politics and ancient traditions. VIEWS With Malice Toward Many by Tom Landess Washington, Lincoln, and God. The Conversion of a Culture by Harold O.J. Brown Crisis and revolution. Dobson's Choice by Aaron D. Wolf Politics and the spirit of martyrdom. Throne and Altar by Hugh Barbour, O.Praem. Imposing ...

In new books, writers as disparate as Naomi Wolf and Pat Buchanan conclude that America as we know her is disappearing. Both writers hope, but are not confident, that enough Americans will catch on in time to find the leadership to pull America back from the brink. If polls are reliable, a majority of Americans...

“How’s your garden doing this year?”  It’s a familiar question, as normal as the greeting that began the conversation and the goodbye that will end it.  I cannot start a conversation with my grandmother, or an aunt or uncle or cousin, without being asked the question within a minute or two—or, depending on the time...

The most significant event of President George W. Bush’s second term (thus far) has been the defeat of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S.1348). This bill was initiated by President Bush in collaboration with the Democratic congressional majority, over the opposition of the Republicans and a few rebellious Democrats. The real winners of...

The Eternal City is home to many eternal things—or, rather, their representatives, among them St. Peter’s, the Castel Sant’Angelo, the Capitoline Hill, and the Forum. Nevertheless, on recent travels to Rome, my wife’s and my first visit has been to none of these things, but, instead, to our good friends Asha and Bellamy, who reside...

We all know that religious believers are fools who will tell themselves anything to prop up their preconceived notions, while atheists are hard-headed rationalists who look the evidence in the face and follow the Truth no matter the cost. Still, one’s faith in this common narrative of the chattering classes is shaken from time to...

Had the Soviet Union not collapsed, today would have been a festive day in Moscow. The 90th anniversary of the October Revolution (“October” since in 1917 Russia was still using the Julian calendar) would be marked by a big military parade, with Western correspondents and military attaches on the lookout for new types of ICBMs...

American Views: The North The Lord made use of my Pen to write many Books for the advancement of His Kingdome; Yea, and had strangely encouraged and fortified my Serviceableness, by such Marks of Respect from other Parts of the World, as no Person in America has ever yett received before me. —Cotton Mather, first...

As we near the deadline of December 10 for the Contact Group “Troika’s” report on its attempts to negotiate a solution to the problem of Kosovo, the voices of reason in the United States are finally becoming more influential and more articulate than ever before. Over the past two weeks alone, John Bolton, Christian Science...

I am gratified that the long-awaited motu proprio from Pope Benedict, urging a wider celebration of the Tridentine Rite, is out. I’m happy for those, including my son, who love to worship in that way. More power to ’em. Some of the ...

PERSPECTIVE Wiccan Warming by Thomas Fleming Planet-worshiping environmentalists. VIEWS Agrarians, Greenies, and Goreites by Tom Landess To the next generation. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles by Tobias Lanz The high environmental cost of too much freedom. Edward Abbey by Gregory McNamee Conservative conservationist—and controversialist. NEWS Reflections on Immigration Reform by David A. Hartman The battle for...

All one can ever imagine of Eve is the fig leaf, but the whole issue is more universal, and at the same time somehow more prickly, than any isolated contretemps in the Legoland of the senses. Say “glutton,” and in your mind’s eye you’ll ...

Now that the youngest of our World War II veterans, with but a few exceptions, are in their 80’s, I fear that, as they die, memory of them will die also. While teaching history in college for more than 30 years—15 of ...

For Dr. James Watson, 79-year-old co-winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for medicine for his discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, October marked the nadir of a brilliant career. The month began with Watson headed to London to promote his new book, “Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science,” and to lecture...

Over at NRO, the chorus of praise for Rudy Giuliani grows louder. David Frum has announced that he has become a senior advisor to Giuliani, whom he praised for his “character.” William Simon and Deroy Murdock wrote separate pieces to explain why social conservatives should support Giuliani. And, on Wednesday, Kathryn Jean Lopez made clear...

How much would you pay for a library card? In Rockford, if you are not a resident, you have to pay $140 per year for the privilege of using the Rockford Public Library system. With six branches scattered throughout the city and ...

Observing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a Democratic House imperil a U.S.-Turkish alliance of 60 years—by formally charging Turkey with genocide in a 1915 massacre of the Armenians—the question comes to mind: Does this generation have the maturity to lead America? About the horrors visited on Armenians in 1915, that year of Turkish triumph over the...

In a previous column I expressed irritation at those numerous folks who confess to having voted for George W. Bush in 2000 (and even 2004) because they were deceived into believing he was a “conservative.” For anyone believing that Bush was a “conservative” in 2000 the only deception going on was self-deception. Here is a...

An international conference that would jump-start the stalled talks on the future status of Kosovo could be held after elections in the Serbian province next month, European diplomats said Monday. The current round of negotiations, supervised by an international “Troika” of the EU, Russia and the United States, is scheduled to end on December 10....

Austrian authorities announced on October 2 that they arrested a second Bosnian-Muslim suspect in the plot to attack the American Embassy in Vienna. Mehmed D. (34) was apprehended following the arrest of Asim C. (42) last Monday, after the latter tried to enter the ...

Many in Congress deeply regret having voted President Bush a blank check for war in October 2002. And they are frustrated at their inability to compel him to begin bringing the troops home. Why, then, is Congress pushing for a new confrontation, with Iran, which could involve us in a war with a nation four...

PERSPECTIVE

What is History? What do historians claim to be doing? What is it that historians are actually doing? What is it that historians should be doing? My desire is rather to provoke discussion than to lay down the law. —Sir Walter Greg Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply...

The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown New York: Random House; 481 pp., $27.50 A Russian joke of relatively recent vin­tage comes to mind. “How could you, a Stakhanovite dairy worker, with two Red Commendations to your credit, with the Regional Party Committee foursquare behind you,” a collective ...

In my last appearance in this space, I wrote erroneously that Christopher Hitchens had favored both Anglo-American wars on Iraq. In fact, he strongly opposed the first one, back in 1991. I remember this so vividly (I was delighted with him at the ...

On June 30, 2002, the Rockford school-desegregation lawsuit came to an end. After 13 years of busing; the closing of numerous neighborhood schools, one of which is now a mosque and Islamic school; the construction of several massive (and massively overpriced) magnet schools, ...

Sicko Produced by The Weinstein Company Directed and written by Michael Moore Michael Moore calls his films documentaries, but they’re really sockumentaries. He is cinema’s heavyweight master of the sucker punch. Behind his slovenly, shambling flabbiness, he packs a vicious left hook. That’s politically left, of ...

On Sept. 7, National Public Radio reported that Muslims in the Middle East were beginning to believe that the 9-11 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon were false flag operations committed by some part of the U.S. and-or Israeli government. It was beyond the ...

My curriculum vitae still includes a paragraph describing my activities as an “educational consultant,” though it has been some years since I went to Washington to read grants or evaluate schools for the Department of Education. It was all time wasted, less profitable ...

” . . . the play’s the thing . . . “   —Hamlet, Prince of Denmark In a recent outing on this site I gave as an example of the emptiness of American culture the fact that American movies today are British Commonwealth dominated in directors, writers, and performers. I confess, I love movies, for...

If Rupert Murdoch gets his way, all Earthlings will read one newspaper and watch one television station. And Murdoch will own both. So even before the Media Monster That Ate New York and London had the Wall Street Journal for dessert, the ...

I was in London on a brief visit last weekend, which happened to be the tenth anniversary of the accidental death, at the age of 36, of Princess Diana, the divorced wife of the heir-apparent to the British throne. In marked contrast to the ...

PERSPECTIVE Counting People and People Who Count by Thomas Fleming Domesticated humans. VIEWS Sex, Propaganda, and Higher Education by Tom Landess Inside the opinion mill. The Faces of Men by Jack Trotter Education and masculinity. Virtual Education Reality by William Barr Facilitating democracy. NEWS Italy's ...