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Sam Tanenhaus’s ‘Original Sin’
This month in The New Criterion, I have a short note about “Original Sin: Why the GOP Is and Will Continue to Be the Party of White People,” Sam Tanenhaus’s tendentious and interminable article in a...
View ArticleJohn Kerry to anti-Semites, fans of 9/11: “We ❤ you.”
You can tell a lot about someone by looking at those he admires. Over at The Weekly Standard, Samuel Tadros has a melancholy piece about some of the people the Obama administration admires. Tomorrow,...
View ArticleMartinis, the original understanding
Yesterday, a colleague passed along a request for some information about Robert H. Bork’s position on Martinis. Since Bob’s death in December, we have seen many reflections about his opinions regarding...
View ArticleMcCarthy to Rand Paul: Leave the Constitution Alone
Rand Paul’s 13-hour talkathon was pretty good theater. But if its histrionic quality was high, its policy content was zero. Paul whipped up the troops over the prospect of American armed forces...
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Where your money goes
It’s that time of year again. Like millions of Americans — some 50 percent of tax filers, in fact — I am spending many hours assembling various forms and bits of paper that I will turn over to my...
View ArticleMore Wisdom from McCarthy on Rand Paul
Is there something about the name “Rand” that softens the brains of their more excitable adherents? I wonder. Whatever the virtues of Ayn Rand (and, as I have noted, she does have her virtues) or...
View ArticleMore Rot from the EU, Cyprus Edition
Asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton is said to have replied, “because that’s where the money is.” Obviously, Willie Sutton did not live in contemporary Cyprus, whose banking system, as Walter...
View ArticleAnnals of Justice, Division of Jury Duty
Our government, I am more and more convinced, has degenerated into a mechanism whose most palpable effect (not its purpose, of course) is to irritate citizens by wasting their time and requiring their...
View ArticleWhat Philistinism Looks Like
For anyone who wants to take a peek into what is perhaps the most radical philistinism of our time, I recommend “The Heretic,” Andrew Ferguson’s long and thoughtful essay in the current Weekly...
View ArticleRemembering Hilton Kramer
Today, March 25, is the birthday of my friend and colleague Hilton Kramer, who, together with the pianist and music critic Samuel Lipman (1934-1994), started The New Criterion in September 1982....
View ArticleEaster Thoughts
Dear friends (and others), Here is a reposting of what has become my traditional thoughts on Easter: Yesterday, Holy Saturday, was glorious, and I am happy to report that, though rain is threatened...
View ArticleMargaret Thatcher, RIP
I have been out of town in a semi-secure, undisclosed location and have not had occasion to weigh in on the death of Margaret Thatcher. I happened to be with some close friends of hers when the news...
View ArticleMy Latest Trip to Titipu
Last year around this time, I wrote here about the Blue Hill Troupe’s superlative performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s late, seldom-staged operetta “Utopia, Limited” at the Museo del Barrio in New...
View ArticleBoston Massacre: What do we know?
Not much. Yesterday, Drudge brief reported that there were twelve dead. At the moment, he quotes “cops” who in a continuously updated WaPo report say there are two three dead, 23 injured. Boston.com...
View ArticleCalling a Spade a Spade in Boston
One of the curious, but also most predictable, responses to the Boston Marathon bombings from the Left has been the fervent expression — amounting nearly to a prayer — that the perpetrator or...
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SWAT Nation
Fear. Horror. Disgust. For me, that melancholy trinity defines the response to latest act of Islamic terrorism on U.S. soil, the hideous bombings at the Boston Marathon just over a week ago that left...
View ArticleThis Week’s Funniest Headline . . .
. . . comes from the New York Times. “Professors at San Jose State Criticize Online Courses.” Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Someone told me the story that Larry Ellison, genius loci of Oracle...
View ArticleNordlinger on Kimball
Gertrude Stein once asked: “What do writers want?” Her heartfelt answer (this was one thing she really knew about): “Praise, praise, praise.” Truer words, etc., etc. I’ve had occasion to ponder the...
View ArticleThe Pew’s foray into fantasy
So, Andy McCarthy reports on the Pew Research Center’s survey on “The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics, and Society.” The world’s Muslims, mind you. That’s a capacious group. The bottom line:...
View ArticleNew Criterion Theater Critic Ejected from Theater
I am just writing a piece about Maureen Dowd that begins with a quotation from William Hazlitt: “Those who lack delicacy hold us in their power.” La Dowd exemplifies the melancholy truth of Hazlitt’s...
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