Monthly Archives: January 2009

He’s preaching fear and loss, as if he were eager for the kind of defeat in the economic realm that eluded the Left in Iraq. Presidents are not obliged to be cheerleaders, but they usually, at least, lay out an … Continue reading →

The Illinois state senate voted yesterday to remove Governor Rod Blagojevich from office, by the unanimous vote of 59-0. I listened in and out the past few days to Blagojevich defending himself, and to be quite frank I think he … Continue reading →

He was reluctantly so, but he explained his reasons circuitously and at length, here. That link is from The Tank, which offered up these two paragraphs from Updike’s argument: The protest, from my perspective, was in large part a snobbish … Continue reading →

Rather, expressing a preference for anarchy or “unconstitutional” monarchy, but in his view they might not be mutually exclusive. Tolkien was not a fan of democracy, and he wasn’t shy about stating his reasons. Here’s where you can find it. … Continue reading →

Victor Davis Hanson indicts his, my, generation, and he’s got it right: At some point in all this serial hysteria, we are beginning to see the problem is not in the stars of the economy or of the war, but … Continue reading →

Beck has a long quote from Leonard Peikoff’s “The American School: Why Johnny Can’t Think,” which amplifies Dennis Prager’s column on the destruction of students by American universities, which I quoted and examined earlier today. It helps explain why younger … Continue reading →

When I discovered John Updike, way back when, it was like a scene from one of these comic book movies where someone is thrown across the room by a twitch from a strange force. I just had never read a … Continue reading →

No, not another post about American universities, though the title here is certainly flexible enough to cover that subject. This is just a link to a review of Theodore Dalrymple’s new book, Not With a Bang But a Whimper: The … Continue reading →

One of the odd things about the Left is how isolated it is within its own conceits. Conservatives are ritually attacked by the Left as narrow-minded and anti-intellectual, but there are so many prominent and non-prominent conservatives who are former … Continue reading →

He’s that pudgy guy Obama is sending down to the White House showroom to sell stuff to the press. Well, that’s not going to last long. He’s getting slapped around. He thinks that he’s there to be their friend.

Just ghastly. You see, it’s all about cutting expenses for the state. Soylent Green can be kinda pricey. It’s not cheap like it was in the old days.

…when the government ascends the steps of the economic bell tower. Beck on the knowledge problem and markets: The most fundamental root of this fact is that no government planner — or anyone else — can ever know what every … Continue reading →

Richard Fernandez, whose best is sublime: It recalls the last chapter of 1984, with Winston Smith sitting in a flyblown cafe, drinking Victory Gin and hearing the words go round in his head. ‘Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold … Continue reading →

Soja has the details. Caution: High Church Leftists will want to avert their eyes.

Spengler, again, on the inauguration of Barack Obama. He quotes Poe’s “The Man of the Crowd,” a story that I had missed altogether or simply forgotten about: “As the shades of the second evening came on, I grew wearied unto … Continue reading →

“Booosh,” of course, is the Left’s demonized caricature of George W. Bush, which was blamed for every conceivable wrong that occurred in the world, serving as both a national and international scapegoat. That’s not what the conservative movement needs to … Continue reading →