Columns, pieces and posts
Prince Harry’s book is odd. There’s even something half-mad about it. He opens with a dramatic meeting at Frogmore, his former mansion on the grounds of Windsor. It is just after the death of Prince Philip, Harry’s paternal grandfather. For months Harry has been estranged from his father, Charles, and his brother, William—a “full-scale public […]
Two stories. I suppose they have to do with navigating one’s professional life, though they could apply personally too. One stayed with me for decades, the other is recent; either might be helpful to a reader as the new year begins. The first is about David Letterman. In 1992 he was famously passed over to […]
What do we learn from the George Santos story? Samuel Johnson observed that men more frequently need to be reminded than informed. The Santos story reminds us that the integrity with which we conduct our lives matters. At first the lies of the newly elected congressman from Long Island, revealed in the New York Times, […]
There is a sense in which last month’s election can be seen as America trying to return itself to its previous settings. The outcome was inherently moderate, and those who seemed extreme didn’t prosper. One way the country could return to normalcy is not to have a repeat of Biden vs. Trump in 2024. Nobody […]
Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won re-election last month by 7.5 points. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won re-election by 9.2. Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker lost his Tuesday runoff by 2.7. Neither Mr. Kemp nor Mr. Raffensperger was a Donald Trump ally; both resisted his demands to alter the state’s 2020 election tally. […]
I want to talk about three separate things that to me aren’t separate. We are in a crisis on the southern border. It is a disaster. El Paso, Texas, is the latest city to be overwhelmed. This Monday, from the New York Times: “After nightfall on Sunday, hundreds of migrants stepped across the Rio Grande […]
It is my impression we’re making more psychopaths. I can’t back this up with statistics because doctors don’t write “total psycho” on the diagnosis line. Psychopathy isn’t a diagnostic category and is largely viewed as part of a cluster of antisocial personality disorders. But doctors commonly use the term and it has defined characteristics. The […]
From a speech last month at the Al Smith Dinner at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. Words of thanks to someone I knew well as a child: I had an old great-aunt. She was my grandfather’s sister. Her name was Mary Jane Byrne but we called her Jane Jane. When I first encountered […]
Chris Christie got a standing ovation from the Republican Governors Association this week after delivering fiery words that captured the inner views of audience members, including GOP officeholders from 50 states, donors, party figures and operatives. The former New Jersey governor told them voters in the midterms “rejected crazy.” We spoke by phone after Donald […]
It is rude of Arizona and Nevada to keep the country waiting to know the composition of its Senate. Why, days after the election, don’t we know which party controls the House? Why can’t the late-reporting states get their act together on vote counting? It’s the increase in mail-in ballots? So what? You roll with […]