Just over a year ago, I wrote an article for The American Spectator which took to task a review of “Grand Theft Auto IV” that had recently appeared in The New York Times for treating a video game as if it were a work of art — which, indeed, the reviewer (Seth Schiesel) had taken it to…
The late, great Irving Kristol was laid to rest yesterday in a beautiful and moving service at the Adas Israel synagogue in Washington, D.C., and his funeral provides the occasion for a brief reflection on his most famous saying, quoted in nearly every one of the many obituaries I have seen, that a neoconservative is “a…
The powerful and moving love story of Fanny Brawne and — some poet
Today¡¯s Washington Post¡¯s front page lead is yet another story puffing the paper¡¯s favored candidate for Governor of Virginia, Democrat Creigh Deeds, over his Republican opponent, Bob McDonnell: “Deeds Shows Big Gains In Va. Poll,” it announces with an unmistakable note of triumph. “More in N.Va., Women Describe McDonnell As Too Conservative.” Read a little further…
The first reports of Jimmy Carter’s typically ill-judged remarks about the racial motivations of Congressman Joe Wilson’s mentito, hurled in the teeth of President Obama, were accompanied in The Washington Post, The New York Times and Politico, among other distinguished outlets, by reports of how the Obama administration and other senior Democrats were hastening to…
An occasionally enjoyable but slight movie which René Zellweger’s performance in the leading role is not quite enough to redeem
A subject that has always been close to my heart is the extent to which the combination of educational fashion and political correctness has cut off a whole generation of young people in America and other Western countries from their own history. In today’s (London) Daily Telegraph, Dominic Sandbrook gives an idea of how far…
Americans don’t “torture,” we’re told, and anyway it wouldn’t do us any good if we did — From The New Criterion of June, 2009
There is, of course, no excuse for Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina who shouted, “You lie!” in the middle of President Obama’s health care speech last night. As Dana Milbank put it in this morning’s Washington Post, “the nation”s rapidly deteriorating discourse hit yet another low.” But wait a minute. Only a moment before in…
Further to my post of Monday on honor versus compassion and our failure to appreciate cultural differences, I can’t resist adding this priceless comment from Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister who is carrying the can for the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. A propos of the hero’s welcome this terrorist…
Fantasy is for kids, reality for grownups. But who wants to be a grownup anymore? — From The American Spectator of July/August, 2009
