Peggy Noonan

“Everybody knows everything.” That mordant observation is the first of Burnham’s Laws. James Burnham was a significant mid-20th century figure, a public intellectual and political philosopher who started out on the left—as a young follower he carried on an extensive personal correspondence with Leon Trotsky —and became in time an eloquent foe of totalitarianism in […]

This is on the danger of pushing it too far. It is a delicate business knowing what the moment will allow. You can be right in intent and wrong on execution, and if you’re wrong on that it may not matter you were right in intent. A great woman in business and the arts once […]

We feel the coolness of the mornings now. The school year has begun. Students are entering or returning to colleges and universities with a busy buzz of hope and anticipation. The only way to begin any new endeavor is with a sense of excitement about life. In connection to that, Anthony Kronman has a bracing […]

8/22/2This week we turn the column over to Edith Wharton, (1862-1937), the great woman of letters and author of the Gilded Age novels “The Age of Innocence,” “The House of Mirth” and “The Custom of the Country.” She was the first American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She was also named a […]

This week we turn the column over to the late Mike McAlary (1957-98), tabloid star and journalistic tough guy. Here’s Mike: So I’m talking to this political guy, holds a significant office which I won’t tell you because it’s none of your business. We’re having breakfast in a high-end midtown hotel. Gleaming silver buffet, steam […]

Moon river wider than a mile I’m crossing you in style someday I’m in the waiting area of the doctor’s office and it comes on the Muzak system and I’m sitting peacefully, not scrolling or looking at headlines, and I hear the music and remember the lyrics and my eyes start to fill. That old […]

A few points on round two of the Democratic debates in Detroit. The first night was good, full of fight and clarifying. The second was sour, with candidates jumping around with their small strategies. Parties forget that in such debates an aggregate impression emerges. Here is the less important and perhaps temporary one: The Democrats […]

We often make historical parallels here. History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme, as clever people say. And sometimes it hiccups. Here is a hiccup. We start with the moral and political catastrophe that was the French Revolution. It was more a nationwide psychotic break than a revolt—a great nation at its own throat, […]

I want to kick away from the daily and get to something larger. We are a nation of just under 330 million. We have a lot of disputes, always have, argument is one of our traditions. To make it all work, to keep this thing going, we have to give each other a little room, […]

Three small points we labor mightily to connect: Joe Biden has me thinking about . . . Julius Caesar. The political class of Rome wanted Caesar gone and successfully dispatched him with 23 wounds. But the conspirators themselves came to unhappy ends—Caesar’s base hated them and chased them out of town! Nobody loves an assassin. […]