Columns, pieces and posts
Americans are not ideologues. They think ideology is something squished down on their heads from on high, something imposed on them by big thinkers who create systems we’re all supposed to conform to. Americans are more interested in philosophy, which bubbles up from human beings, from tradition and learned experience, and isn’t imposed. Lately we […]
It’s been a week marked by mistakes, some new and some continuing. The pro-Obama super PAC ad that essentially blames Mitt Romney for a woman’s death from cancer is over the line, and if it’s allowed to stand the personal attacks that have marked the presidential campaign will probably get worse. If the president rebukes […]
From a friend watching the Olympics: “How about that Michael Phelps? But let’s remember he didn’t win all those medals, someone else did. After all, he and I swam in public pools, built by state employees using tax dollars. He got training from the USOC, and ate food grown by the Department of Agriculture. He […]
At a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” the other day on Manhattan’s East 86th Street, three cops were posted outside, two in a cruiser and one on a motorcycle. An usher said they’d been coming by since the shooting in Aurora, Colo. She was relieved they were there; we now can add movie ushers […]
Thoughts on three recent failures to communicate: In the controversy surrounding the uniforms of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, the problem isn’t China. That the uniforms were made there is merely a deep embarrassment and a missed opportunity. Our textile and manufacturing companies deserved that work. You wonder how it could be that no one […]
The 2012 presidential election is unusual. It is a crisis election like 1932 or 1980, with the American people knowing we’re at a turning point and knowing that who we pick now really matters. But crisis elections tend to bring drama—a broad sense of excitement and passion. We’re not seeing that this year. We’re not […]
There’s something Haley Barbour reminded me of called the Gate Rule. The former Mississippi governor said it’s the first thing you should think of when you think about immigration. People are either lined up at the gate trying to get out of a country, or lined up trying to get in. It says something about […]
It is a big victory for the White House. ObamaCare, including the insurance mandate, was upheld. What would have been a political disaster for President Obama has been averted. He has not been humiliated, and the centerpiece of his efforts the past 3½ years has not been rebuked by the Supreme Court. The ruling strikes […]
You know what Republicans on the ground think when they look at Mitt Romney? “Please don’t blow it.” They think President Obama can’t win but Mr. Romney can still lose. So they’re feeling burly but anxious, hopeful yet spooked. They see Mr. Obama as surrounded by bad indicators—bad polls, bad economic numbers, scandals. They see […]
What is happening with all these breaches of our national security? Why are intelligence professionals talking so much—divulging secret and sensitive information for all the world to see, and for our adversaries to contemplate? In the past few months we have read that the U.S. penetrated Al Qaeda in Yemen and foiled a terror plot; […]