Columns, pieces and posts
I have been called old, jaded, a sourpuss. Far worse, I have been called French. A response is in order. You know the dispute. Last week I slammed the president’s inaugural address. I was not alone, but I came down hard, early and in one of the most highly read editorial pages in America. Bill […]
It was an interesting Inauguration Day. Washington had warmed up, the swift storm of the previous day had passed, the sky was overcast but the air wasn’t painful in a wind-chill way, and the capital was full of men in cowboy hats and women in long furs. In fact, the night of the inaugural balls […]
The Rathergate Report is a watershed event in American journalism not because it changes things on its own but because it makes unavoidably clear a change that has already occurred. And that is that the mainstream media’s monopoly on information is over. That is, the monopoly enjoyed by three big networks, a half dozen big […]
The 109th Congress has been sworn in and convened, and now the new post-election reality begins. If I were a Democrat right now I would think big and get serious. Second terms are tough for incumbents; history has not handed George W. Bush an easy ride, and there’s no reason to think that will change […]
The biggest story of the year happened just as big-thinking journalists went on vacation after filing their “Ten Biggest Stories of 2004” pieces. Life has a way of surprising us. I thought the other day of Harrison Salisbury, and his response when asked what he’d learned after a lifetime as a reporter. “Expect the unexpected,” […]
And it came to pass, that in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out […]
This week the president’s chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, made news when he spoke about the religious references George W. Bush makes in his speeches. Mr. Gerson said that while President Bush believes, as most Christians do, that God is at work in his life, the president does not of course believe that God is behind […]
We have been writing lately about Republicans. Let’s pay some attention to Hillary Clinton, just for fun. I wrote a book about her more than four years ago. The idea came from a friend, a bright former-Republican-now-Democrat who thought my Wall Street Journal pieces on Mrs. Clinton’s looming senatorial candidacy could be turned into something […]
Life is complicated, people are complicated, and most of us are a jumble of virtues, flaws and contradictions. I like to try to understand the past, try to put it together in a way that makes sense to me. This can involve judging not only your own actions and decisions but those of others, which […]
One night during the past campaign I made a speech at an annual county GOP meeting in Pennsylvania. I can’t remember the name of the county or where it was exactly; I was there at that moment of early darkness when Pennsylvania is New Jersey and New Jersey is Ohio: it all looks the same. […]