Columns, pieces and posts
Seems like a long time ago; seems like yesterday. Actually we’re in that awkward period of historical memory in which it’s too soon to see 9/11 as History Channel fodder and too late to feel it freshly. It was 21 months ago; life moves on; we don’t talk about “Where were you?” anymore. And yet […]
This is a book about love. That’s an odd thing to say about a collection that spans 9/11/01 to 9/11/02, and that centers on the attacks on America. But the primary emotion I felt in those days was a love, or a tender sense of appreciation, for everyone who played a part in the drama—the […]
Last Thursday night Tom Brokaw carried a war report that featured an American GI who’d been shot in the leg outside Baghdad. They showed him being treated in the field on a gurney. His pants had been cut away, and you could see his shorts. They were red, white and blue. They had stars and […]
The death of Michael Kelly is a sin against the order of the world. He was a young man on his way to becoming a great man. He was going to be one of the great editors of his time, and at the age of 46 he was already one of its great journalists. And […]
Unanticipated good can come from misfortune. When the war began 11 days ago, on that Thursday morning that began with the big bunker blaster hit on the famous target of opportunity, it seemed possible, if only for 48 hours, that this just might be an easy war. What surprise and relief. There were reports that […]
So far so good. The war has begun, and the world hasn’t ended (alarmists, pessimists and prophets on left and right please note). Saddam Hussein may be hurt or dead. And so, on to Baghdad. An old song from the American civil rights is on my mind and seems on point. It’s about how far […]
The Bush administration, famously inclined toward clarity and bluntness in foreign affairs, did something Friday that seemed almost . . . subtle. Or even obscuring. On the brink of war, with everyone in the world rushing to the radio and TV to see if the invasion had happened or the White House blinked or the […]
It’s a beat-up little suburban single-story house in a Third World place far away. Faded blue paint on the outside, broken bicycle on a cracked cement walkway, rusty fence. You wouldn’t think twice if you drove by. It wasn’t interestingly decrepit or antique, just modern, cheap and fallen down. It’s after midnight. A man—thin, bearded, […]
Recently Andrew Cuomo asked me to contribute to a book of essays on the future of the Democratic Party. I thought I would send it to Andrew through OpinionJournal.com. That way he will be able to see your responses pro and con and perhaps include a few of them in the book, too. Dear Andrew, […]
Two of our former presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, have been talking a lot about their views and feelings on Iraq. It would be nice if they took to speaking less and thinking more. They could start with an event in the latter years of Dwight David Eisenhower, a former president who knew how […]