Columns, pieces and posts
Four moments in the recent annals of free speech in America. Actually annals is too fancy a word. This all happened in the past 10 days: At Columbia University, members of the Minutemen, the group that patrols the U.S. border with Mexico and reports illegal crossings, were asked to address a forum on immigration policy. […]
Thirty-two years into his career as a writer of books, Bob Woodward has won a reputation as slipshod (“Wired”), slippery (“All the President’s Men,” “The Final Days”), opportunistic (“Veil”; everything) and generally unaware of the implications even of those facts he’s offered that have gone unchallenged. As a reporter he’s been compared to a great […]
We are talking past each other, the left and right in America. I suppose we always did, but I’m noticing it more. We have different intellectual styles (rather too emotive, arguably too linear), start with different assumptions, and recognize different data. We could be speaking different languages. Which is odd, since all half the country […]
This is what I was thinking as I walked this week along the siren-filled streets of New York: The temperature of the world is very high. We have a global warming problem, and maybe it’s due to an increase in the output of heated words. And they too can, in the end, melt icecaps. “The […]
Autumn is the true American New Year. This is when we make our real resolutions. The perfect fall has two things, present pleasure (new exhibits, shows, parties) and something to look forward to—for the political, the upcoming election. Which is my subject. My resolution is to try in a renewed way, each day, and within […]
Everyone remembers the pictures, but I think more and more about the sounds. I always ask people what they heard that day in New York. We’ve all seen the film and videotape, but the sound equipment of television crews didn’t always catch what people have described as the deep metallic roar. The other night on […]
Matt Lauer: Let me go back to that line in your speech last night. I’ll paraphrase it if you don’t mind. You said, for the sake of your state, your country and my party, you will not let these results stand. It’s a nice line in the speech, but the fact of the matter is […]
It has long been my bitter hunch that the man I can’t help think of as the last monster of the 20th century, Fidel Castro, creator and warden of the floating prison to our south, would die of old age in a big brass bed, a snifter of brandy in one hand and a good […]
Why does President Bush refer in public to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “Condi”? Did Dwight Eisenhower call his Secretary of State “Johnny”? Did Jimmy Carter call his “Eddie,” or Bill Clinton call his “Maddy,” or Richard Nixon call his “Willie” or “Hank”? What are the implications of such informality? I know it is […]
During the past week’s heat wave—it hit 100 degrees in New York City Monday—I got thinking, again, of how sad and frustrating it is that the world’s greatest scientists cannot gather, discuss the question of global warming, pore over all the data from every angle, study meteorological patterns and temperature histories, and come to a […]