Columns, pieces and posts
I found myself engrossed this week by the calm, incisive wisdom of one of the few living statesmen in the world who can actually be called visionary. The wisdom is in a book, “Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States and the World,” a gathering of Mr. Lee’s interviews, speeches […]
In line with tradition Pope Francis this holy week washes the feet of the poor. In a departure from tradition he did it in a juvenile prison in Rome. In line with tradition he will live in the Vatican. In a departure from tradition he will live not in the apostolic palace but in a […]
We have three thoughts today, actually two because one is a question. The question: if the Supreme Court is so leery of ruling on same-sex marriage, why did they take the two cases they’re hearing? Reporters hear reluctance and ambivalence in the justice’s questions yesterday to the lawyers standing before them. I thought the high […]
The air has been full of 10th-anniversary Iraq war retrospectives. One that caught my eye was a smart piece by Tom Curry, national affairs writer for NBC News, who wrote of one element of the story, the war’s impact on the Republican party: “The conflict not only transformed” the GOP, “but all of American politics.” […]
It really is quite wonderful, what we’re hearing and seeing from Rome. The plain shoes. The plain watch. The slightly galumphy look as he does his walkabouts. The reason he took his name: “How I wish for a poor church, and for a church for the poor.” The report I received of his taking the […]
I watched a lot of the Conservative Political Action Conference on C-Span from New York. I think members of the media forget, or don’t notice, that CPAC is not a gathering of the Republican Party, it’s a gathering of independent conservative groups. Not inviting Chris Christie was strange—who’s been more successfully conservative in a blue […]
I’ll tell you how it looks: like one big unexpected gift for the church and the world. Everything about Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election was a surprise—his age, the name he took, his mien as he was presented to the world. He was plainly dressed, a simple white cassock, no regalia, no finery. He stood […]
The exciting thing is the confounding thing: To a degree I’ve never seen before, nobody knows who the next pope will be. All my smart Catholic friends who tend to have a sense of what’s coming or a good read of the lay of the land—they don’t have a clue. Eight years ago I thought […]
This is from not-for-attribution interviews with two Republican senators who attended the dinner with the president on Wednesday night at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington. One was heartened and impressed by the meeting while retaining his skepticism as to whether it might open the way to pronounced progress in pursuit of a so-called grand bargain. […]
It’s not a debt and deficit crisis, it’s a jobs crisis. The debt and the deficit are part of it, part of the general fear that we’re on a long slide and can’t turn it around. The federal tax code is part of it—it’s a drag on everything, a killer of the spirit of guts […]