The End of Roe v. Wade Will Be Good for America The mistaken abortion decision, a product of vanity, roiled and distorted our politics and poisoned our culture.

Let’s start with true anger and end with honest hope. The alarm many felt at the leaking of an entire draft Supreme Court decision shouldn’t be allowed to dissipate as time passes. Such a thing has never happened. Justice Samuel Alito’s preliminary opinion being taken from the court, without permission or right, and given to […]

Putin Really May Break the Nuclear Taboo in Ukraine It seems unthinkable, but American leaders’ failure to think about it heightens the risk it will happen.

Sometimes a thing keeps nagging around your brain and though you’ve said it before you have to say it again. We factor in but do not sufficiently appreciate the real possibility of nuclear-weapon use by Russia in Ukraine. This is the key and crucial historic possibility in the drama, and it really could come to […]

Joe Biden Has a Presentation Problem Voters would be grateful if he stopped talking down to them and learned to be straightforward.

I want to talk about Joe Biden and his unique problems presenting his presidency. You’re aware of his political position and the polls. The latest from CNN has him at 39% approval. Public admiration began to plummet during the Afghanistan withdrawal. That disaster came as it was becoming clear the president was handing his party’s […]

How to Protect Children From Big Tech Companies Lawmakers are way out of their depth, but a good place to start would be a simple age limit.

Journalists and people who think aloud for a living are often invited to gatherings where experts in various fields share what they know. These meetings often operate under Chatham House rules, in which you can write of the ideas presented but not directly quote speakers. At such a gathering this week I was especially struck […]

Nixon’s Example of Sanity in Washington In 1961, a ‘stop the steal’ movement might well have been justified. He did the right thing and conceded.

This extended moment of history reminds me of Washington in the years before and during the Civil War. There was a kind of hysterical intensity among our political class in those days, on all sides. The instability was so dramatic—Rep. Preston Brooks caning Sen. Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate in 1856, poor […]

Same Russia, Different War The story of Theodore Roosevelt and John Hay proves the aggression didn’t start with Putin in Ukraine, or even with communism.

John Hay had a warm mind and a cool heart. The secretary of state to presidents William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt (1898-1905) had two baseline gifts necessary for diplomatic achievement but not always seen together, a quick apprehension of the size and meaning of events and a subtlety and sympathy in the reading of human […]

On Ukraine, History Is Listening So far the West’s tale is a pretty admirable one, marked with mistakes but also discipline and spirit.

I’m thinking of the astounding events of the past three weeks—how history throws its curves and you watch stunning new factors emerge and at some point you feel grateful to feel humble. This ol’ world can still surprise. It can confound every expectation. One surprise, the central one. No one knew the people of Ukraine […]

Ukraine’s Peril Stirs the West’s Humanity The demanding challenge: Keep cool, don’t waver, stay committed, continue to speak in one voice.

It wasn’t geopolitics or ideology that determined world reaction to what happened in Ukraine this week, it was normal human feeling. An army of tanks and troops violently invades a border country populated by its cousins—a country a third its size with a tenth its might—and people watched and thought: That’s not right. If it […]