Archive: The Wall Street Journal

Two Very Different but Plainspoken Speeches Biden and Scott put forth their visions at a time when Americans may be reconsidering theirs.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

Those were two very different speeches Wednesday night, but both were effective and each will have an afterlife. President Biden’s address, with its distancing, masks and half-empty audience, at first didn’t feel like the convening of a great nation’s Congress. It felt insubstantial and goofy, like they were playacting Pandemic Theatre. Mr. Biden turned that […]

Republicans and Immigrants Need Each Other The GOP should be the party of the working and middle classes, whatever their country of origin.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

We have been thinking about the Republican Party and how it can come back—worthily, constructively—after the splits and shatterings of recent years. The GOP is relatively strong in the states but holds neither the White House, House nor Senate and in presidential elections struggles to win the popular vote. Entrenched power centers are arrayed against […]

America Needs the GOP, and It Needs Help The Republican Party is at a low point, but the two-party system is too vital to abandon.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

No one likes the Republican Party. Pretty much every power center in America is arrayed against it—the media, the academy, the entertainment culture, what remains of our high culture, the corporate suite, the nonprofit world. The young aren’t drawn to it. The party is split, if not shattered. The opposition has a new presidency, almost […]

Andrew Cuomo Plots His Survival Under scandal’s cloud and impeachment’s threat, New York’s governor decides not to go quietly.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

We’re seeing some Grade A, first-class, brass-knuckle politics in the state of New York. Wednesday there was an event in Harlem ostensibly to publicize a pop-up vaccination clinic at Mount Neboh Baptist Church, where the embattled governor, Andrew Cuomo, was vaccinated (the Johnson & Johnson one-shot). It was really a planned and raucous rally for […]

Why We Care About the Royal Family Feud The British monarchy has endured for more than a millennium, and the queen is a symbol of stability.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

What just happened? That wasn’t just a high-charged celebrity interview that everyone talked about and then it went away. Oprah Winfrey’s conversation last weekend with the duke and duchess of Sussex will reverberate and last. It was history, a full-bore assault on an institution, the British monarchy, that has endured more than 1,000 years. Harry […]

The Old New York Won’t Come Back ‘The pandemic changed everything,’ we say. But we have yet to absorb fully everything that means.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

New York You can know something yet not fully absorb it. I think that’s happened with the pandemic. It is a year now since it settled into America and brought such damage—half a million dead, a nation in lockdown, a catastrophe for public schools. We keep saying “the pandemic changed everything,” but I’m not sure […]

Rush Limbaugh’s Complicated Legacy He was a gifted entertainer and advocate, but in his later years certain flaws became more evident.

-- The Wall Street Journal:

I meant to talk about something else this week, but my thoughts keep circling back to Rush Limbaugh. His obituaries in the mainstream press were mostly judgment, no mercy. It’s not nice when malice gets a final, unanswered shot. On the conservative side, TV commentaries were cloying to the point of cultish. It gives a […]