Columns, pieces and posts
Nothing is more beautiful, more elevating, more important in a speech than fact and logic. People think passionate and moving oratory is the big thing, but it isn’t. The hard true presentation of facts followed by a declaration of how we must deal with those facts is the key. Without a recitation of hard data, […]
It is now 30 years since the Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade vision, blew down the barriers to abortion on demand, using as the essential rationale a constitutional right of privacy that the court had discovered less than eight years earlier. Since 1973 roughly 40 million abortions—that seems to be the generally accepted […]
In 1988 Roger Ailes, then an advisor to Vice President George Bush in his presidential campaign, watched a television debate among the Democratic candidates and said of eventual nominee Michael Dukakis: “He looks like a guy thinking about what he’s going to have for dinner.” He didn’t mean Mr. Dukakis looked hungry, but preoccupied. His […]
I thought I’d start the year with some thoughts on George W. Bush, for he soon reaches his two-year mark as president, and we have learned some things about him. Some people I love, mostly Democrats but some Republicans, have taken to asking: Why do people like Bush? They know the obvious reasons—9/11, an administration […]
At the end of each year I think about what I’ve learned or come to look at in a new way. In 2002 I sometimes mused on the following: Everyone says money can’t buy love, but I’m not sure that’s precisely true. Say a 43-year-old woman who’s been working for years and is starting to […]
Trent Lott’s position in the Senate is deeply eroded, more than has been made public. His most vocal Senate defenders have one by one privately decided he must go. They want him to step down but have no reason at this point to think he will. They do not want the drama to continue until […]
People approach the Trent Lott story in political terms. Does it hurt the Republican Party? Do the Democrats get more out of the scandal if they successfully campaign for Mr. Lott’s departure, or do they gain more if he continues as GOP leader, functioning as a handy daily symbol of the racism that resides in […]
People approach the Trent Lott story in political terms. Does it hurt the Republican Party? Do the Democrats get more out of the scandal if they successfully campaign for Mr. Lott’s departure, or do they gain more if he continues as GOP leader, functioning as a handy daily symbol of the racism that resides in […]
“Watch, he’s gonna tax the snow.” We turned toward the TV mounted on the wall. “Gonna pay for it now!” the counter clerk said, and people in line laughed as they paid for their papers. Mayor Mike Bloomberg had just come on to do a live news conference. They had the TV on in the […]
Rudolph Giuliani loves opera—big, lush, over-the-top opera, with sobbing clowns and jubilant courtesans. And this makes sense because Mr. Giuliani is a very emotional man. He thinks about the city, about the Yankees and the subways and the people and parades, in an emotional way. He doesn’t just fight crime, he acts a whole drama […]