Columns, pieces and posts
What a bombshell. “Pope Resigns” is probably not a headline you ever thought you’d see. When I first heard, in a phone call at about 6:30 this morning, I literally had to shake my head to get the words understood. The announcement seemed jarring, out of the natural order of things: Popes don’t resign, God […]
So many people this week mentioned Dodge’s great Super Bowl spot, “So God Made a Farmer,” from a 1978 speech by the late Paul Harvey. Here are some reasons it was great: • Because it spoke respectfully and even reverently of others. We don’t do that so much anymore. We’re afraid of looking corny or […]
I’m reading Mitch Daniels’s book “Aiming Higher: Words That Changed a State.” It’s a collection of his speeches as Indiana governor, and in the introduction he talks about the writing of them: “The most perceptive statement I ever read about the task of writing was, ‘Writing is easy. I just sit down and write what […]
Do you hear the sound of an ice floe cracking? I think I did the past 10 days. In that time these things happened: Gov. Bobby Jindal went before the Republican National Committee to call the GOP “the stupid party.” Newly re-elected RNC chairman Reince Priebus admitted the party got smoked on vote technology, will […]
Two lessons on how conservatives and Republicans might approach the future, and a look at the meaning of Barack Obama. Lesson one: Golf star Phil Mickelson this week complained about taxes—”I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state”—and suggested he may leave California. Before anyone could […]
Presidential inaugurations are rare and notable events, coming only once every four years since April 30, 1789, when George Washington raised his right hand and took the oath on the second-floor balcony of New York’s Federal Hall. It’s a big day with all its pomp and ceremony, and among its purposes is this: to encourage […]
I’ve been thinking about Jack Lew’s famous signature, which looks like the squiggles on the top of a Hostess cupcake. A series of O’s is an odd way to write the words Jack and Lew, and I actually hope some good-natured senator asks him about it, good-naturedly, at the end of his confirmation hearings. Maybe […]
It’s official. Congress is now less popular than cockroaches and colonoscopies, though more popular than the ebola virus and gonorrhea. Really. The numbers came, this week, from a Public Policy Polling survey. The House and Senate have an approval rating of 9%. GOP governors are the party’s most esteemed leaders, but they’re not in Washington. […]
We’re all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn’t do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why. He won but he did not triumph. His victory didn’t resolve or ease anything and heralds nothing but more congressional war to come. […]
Here I will tell a story that I suppose is rather personal but what the heck, today’s not a bad day for the personal. Yesterday I went to St. Patrick’s for confession and mass, to start the year off on the right foot. Walking through the cathedral—it was jammed with tourists taking pictures of statues […]