Mister Libby to You
The trial and conviction of I. Lewis Libby represents the disgrace not of Mr Libby but of our political culture — From The New Criterion of April, 2007
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
[See “He Wore a Yellow Stripe,” The American Spectator of April, 2007, under “Articles”]
He Wore a Yellow Stripe
Spy movies ain’t what they used to be. Sometimes they’re better than they used to be — From The American Spectator of April, 2007
Springfield Rifle
[See “He Wore a Yellow Stripe,” The American Spectator of April, 2007, under “Articles”]
Making Much of Thomas Hardy’s Well-Beloved
A celebrity biography of a Victorian Grand Old Man may be just what he deserves — From The American Conservative of April 23, 2007
Entry from April 17, 2007
Reacting to what many in Britain and elsewhere are regarding as the disgraceful behavior while in captivity of the British sailors and marines kidnapped by the Iranians, Simon Heffer recently wrote in the London Daily Telegraph, “Why are some so weak-minded compared with those 18- year-olds who, within living memory, went over the top on the…
Lonely Hearts
Another ersatz film noir “based on fact” which uses its period setting as an excuse for graphic scenes of violence
Entry from April 3, 2007
Listening to a CBS radio report in America on the Iranian hostage crisis last weekend, I heard the reporter speak, almost in the same breath, of the “heavy-handed” British approach to the crisis and of the need to find a solution that would be “face-saving” for the Iranians. The ideas that there might be just…
Time on the Cross of Hype
What the apotheosis of a gold-digging floozy has to tell us about our celebrity culture — From The New Criterion of March, 2007
Summer in Berlin (Sommer vorm Balkon)
A bleak portrait of what remains of love and romance in a world without hope and without a future