Evil rulers then are a sign that God is wroth and angry with us. —William Tyndale Though there is little personal likeness, the President that Junior Bush most resembles in actions and conduct in office is Grant—incompetent, corrupt, clueless, easily led, elected under a false impression, misusing the military. However, Grant, unlike Junior, was articulate...
Year: 2008
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Editors’ Round Table on Sarah Palin: An Innocent Abroad
At Christmas a couple of years ago I was given a daily planner called The Worst Case Scenario Survival Calendar. It gives you advice on how to deal with seriously dire emergencies, like free-falling from 10,000 feet with a parachute that wouldn’t open, facing shark attack far from shore, being bitten by a cobra with...
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Uncle Sam’s Harem
The nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate (a phrase suddenly suggestive) has reopened the question not only of women in politics but a woman's role in society. I am finishing a book, tentatively titled Thicker than Water, sketching out a political order based more on ...
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Editors’ Round Table on Sarah Palin: The Palin Moment
Thomas Fleming, Scott Richert, and Aaron Wolf have all offered typically thoughtful pieces raising important points to consider in evaluating Sarah Palin. But I would like to offer a different perspective, focusing on the speech Palin delivered at the Republican Convention and the reason the speech succeeded, to the point that Palin now enjoys a...
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Distant Drums at Sarah’s Party
ST. PAUL, Minn.—The American Right has just died and gone to heaven. Wednesday night’s convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has not been since the second term of Ronald...
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Editors’ Round Table on Sarah Palin: Energized—For What?
I will resist the temptation to steal my own thunder for next week’s John Randolph Club meeting in Philadelphia, where I intend to talk about the most important aspect of the Palin Pandemonium: the conservative Christian rejection of the natural order. There are at least two other aspects of McCain-Palin that are troubling: abortion and...
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Editors’ Round Table on Sarah Palin: One Catholic’s View
John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin to be his running mate was surprising, but the surprise pales in comparison to the reaction of conservative Christians, especially Catholics. In their race to endorse McCain-Palin, they have cast aside any questions about the complementarity of the sexes, or even the late John Paul II’s theology of the...
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Walking Distance
This is an age in which news of a tragedy garners a response such as this: “Well, our thoughts are with you.” Happy thoughts full of Pelagian grace. It is therefore with some reservation that I now examine Rocky Twyman’s direct and public prayer to the Almighty, a supplication he no doubt offers with full...
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Return to McSorrento
In the 1970’s, when I lived in America, McDonald’s, apart from being a fast-food chain, was a powerful symbol of everything that was wrong with that country. Neither I nor anybody I knew ever referred to the leviathan as a source of nourishment; invariably, its name was placed in a quarantine of ironic quotation marks,...
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A Life in Literature
In May 2003, Christian Wiman was named the new editor of Poetry, the Chicago-based magazine that Harriet Monroe founded and made justly famous. This appointment came a year after Ruth Lilly made a massive gift to the magazine that brought its endowment to nearly $200 million and attracted enormous media attention. Wiman, born in 1966,...
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The American Dream
The presidential campaign that began the day after the previous one ended nearly four years ago seems increasingly like a dream. I suppose it is part of the American Dream—this belief that, of all the allures and temptations the world has to offer, the greatest is the presidency of the United States; the highest calling,...
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The Bishop’s Hot Tub
The American Catholic Church has leaned left for so long that it’s hardly news any more. This began way back when Cardinal Gibbon overruled Pope Benedict XV’s plea for peace during the Great War and pledged to President Wilson the undying fighting loyalty of millions of American Catholic boys (including my father, to whom Gibbon...
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Evolving the Sensitive Soldier
World War II cast an enormous cultural shadow over American life. It provided a backdrop for novels, television shows, and—especially—movies. Like many boys who grew up in the decades after the war, I read about the conflict, traced my fingers across maps illustrating the U.S. island-hopping campaign in the Pacific, watched and rewatched war movies,...
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Beginning With History
Any fool can write history, and many do. Please do not assume that I mean by this statement to vaunt the “expert” and slight the amateur. In writing history the amateur is sometimes gifted, and there is no more pestiferous fool than the smug, pretentious “expert” who thinks of his own mind as the repository...
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David Hume: Historian
Intellectual historians commonly group Voltaire, Edward Gibbon, William Robertson, and David Hume as the four greatest 18th-century historians. If limited to only one of these authors, we would do well to begin with Hume. For one thing, Hume is the only thinker in history who has achieved world-class status as a philosopher and as an...
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George Garrett: 1929-2008
A few years ago, an editor at The Oxford American telephoned to request that I write a piece for that journal about the Calder Willingham-Fred Chappell feud. I struggled to recall the brief episode wherein I corresponded with that screenwriter (The Graduate) and pop novelist (Eternal Fire) about some obscure detail. By an equally obscure complication,...
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Forerunners
Brideshead Revisited Produced by BBC Films and Ecosse Films Directed by Julian Jarrold Screenplay by Andrew Davies and Jeremy Brock from the Evelyn Waugh novel Distributed by Miramax Films The Dark Knight Produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Pictures Directed by Christopher Nolan Screenplay by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited is not...
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Umpires
Mike Carey was the first “African-American” to head a crew that refereed a Super Bowl—the one in which the sainted Tom Brady got his butt kicked by the lowly Giants. The term African-American offends me, and should offend all patriots, and probably offends Mike Carey, who is an accomplished entrepreneur and inventor, the CEO of...
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Words and Power
Most American presidents, unless they leave office in disgrace, are honored by having airports, schools, libraries, streets, and even whole cities named after them. The city of San Francisco has saluted President George W. Bush in a singular way—by naming a sewage-treatment plant after him. Of course, this reminds us that the city on the...
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Surging Toward a Time Horizon
Having listened to recent statements made by President George W. Bush and his presumptive heir, John McCain, I am impressed that these two carriers of the neocon torch expect the opponents of their disastrous military misadventure in Mesopotamia, including presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, to crawl on all fours before the War Party’s leaders,...
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Be Not Afraid
In Leviticus, God gives Israel a number of blessings and curses that describe the benefits and consequences of keeping (or failing to keep) the Sinai covenant. One of the “covenant curses” is curiously descriptive of the jittery culture of fear in which we now live: But if [they] will not hearken unto me, and will...
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Dispelling the Darkness of Secularism
Bolshevism evolved into religion, some kind of materialistic pagan religion, which worships Lenin and his like as demigods, while considering lies, deceit, violence, the oppression of the poor, the demoralizing of children, humiliation of women, destruction of the family . . . and the reduction of all the nation to extreme poverty as the principles...
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Old Dominion, R.I.P.
In the last 38 years, Virginia has evolved from being the “Mother of Presidents” to the “Mother of Foreigners.” That is the upshot of the latest hodgepodge of data from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center. Now, without reading the study, most anyone could probably conclude that the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.,...
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The Dean of Western Historians
It is usually difficult to choose only one author who is essential to the study of a particular subject. When it comes to the history of the frontier West, however, the choice is easy. Ray Allen Billington stands alone above all. He is the sine qua non of any course on frontier history. When reading...
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Lighting Candles
I cannot remember when I first met Mary Ann Aiello. I know, of course, that it had to have been sometime after I moved to Rockford in the last week of 1995, and I suspect that it may have been another three or four years later. But there was something about Mary Ann that made...
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Studies of Character
“Teach him he must deny himself,” said Lee. That was the general’s advice to a young mother who brought her infant to him after the War Between the States to receive his blessing. In his classic four-volume biography R.E. Lee, Douglas Southall Freeman chose this as the incident that best exemplifies Robert E. Lee’s message...
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Chronicle of an Announced Arrest
The media frenzy surrounding the arrest of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on July 21 was based entirely on the doctrine of nonequivalence inaugurated in 1992: Serb crimes are bad and justly exaggerated; Muslim crimes are understandable. This doctrine was spectacularly reiterated a month before Karadzic’s capture, when the Muslim wartime commander of...
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Witness to the Truth: Through Every Human Heart
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn did not share the fate of some 2,000 writers, established or aspiring, who perished during Stalin’s reign of terror. Solzhenitsyn lived, against all odds, because he was chosen by God to share his people’s Calvary, to stand as its witness, and to provide a rare source of light in the cultural and moral...
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How Posner Thinks
“The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” —1 Timothy 1:8 Richard Posner is one of the greatest judges never to have sat on the Supreme Court of the United States. A distinguished professor at the University of Chicago, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit for 25...
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Send in the Clowns
Karagiozis is a mythical Greek character created sometime during the Ottoman occupation (1455-1827). He manages to outwit the Turk at every turn by being funny, dishonest at times, and a very quick thinker. For example, he discusses a business with a Turk and proposes an equal sharing of the wealth. “What’s yours is mine,” he...
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Chinese Monkeys on Our Backs
An eminent British statesman once confessed to Horace Walpole that he had learned all he knew of the Wars of the Roses from reading Shakespeare’s histories. I do not recall who the statesman was, and I am only guessing that Walpole is the source of the anecdote. As is the case of most of what...
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Perspectives on RPW
The late Mark Winchell’s recently published Robert Penn Warren: Genius Loves Company is a collection of essays focusing on Warren’s close associations and literary affinities. Warren was known as a kind and generous man who encouraged other writers in their work, helped those in need, and nurtured fragile friendships over a lifetime, sometimes with people...
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Britain’s Fiery Furnace
Last month, two brave British schoolboys were given detention because they refused to kneel down and pray to Allah during a religious-education lesson. The boys attend classes at Alsager High School near Stoke-on-Trent, situated approximately midway between Manchester and Birmingham. The local county council has a diversity curriculum that requires children be educated in the...
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On Rumanian Distinctions
I wish to thank Chronicles for the insightful parts of Derek Turner’s recent “Letter From Rumania” (“What Civilization Remains,” Correspondence, June). Some portions are extremely lively and convey a vivid picture of his experiences there. As an informed reader, however, I was struck by the one-sided view the article imparts in several ways to the...
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El Jacuzzi De Los Obispos
La Iglesia Católica en los Estados Unidos ha tenido un sesgo político izquierdista desde hace ya tanto tiempo que esta realidad es, a estas alturas, apenas noticiable. Este fenómeno viene de muy largo, desde que el cardenal Gibbon rechazara el llamamiento a la paz lanzado por el Papa Benedicto XV durante la Primera Guerra Mundial....
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Living History—September 2008
PERSPECTIVE Chinese Monkeys on Our Backsby Thomas Fleming VIEWS Beginning With Historyby Clyde WilsonRevisions and deviations. David Hume: Historianby Donald W. LivingstonThe core of the bookshelf. The Dean of Western Historiansby Roger D. McGrathBillington and the frontier culture. BIOGRAPHY George Garrettby Fred Chappell1929-2008. REVIEWS How Posner Thinksby Stephen B. Presser Richard A. Posner: How Judges...
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The Suburbs of Hell
I have not turned on the television in over a week and have refused to listen to NPR’s reverent coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Still, I cannot help picking up stray bits from here and there. What self-absorbed little people, doing star turns in the little plays they have scripted for themselves. Even James...
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Georgia: The Score
Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia makes it imperative to analyze the situation in the Caucasus dispassionately and comprehensively. The mainstream media (MSM) treatment of the crisis has been predictably monolithic, however -- almost as biased (“bad ...
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Not to Worry
Me seemes the world is runne quite out of sqaureFrom the first point of his appointed sourse,And being once amisse, growes daily wourse and wourse.—Spenser, The Faerie Queene It looks like the economy is going bad, but don’t worry. Congress will make sure the bankers and speculators don’t suffer. Could military failure in Iraq have...
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David Frum Blames America First
Anyone questioning the wisdom of neoconservative foreign policy is likely to be told that he is “blaming America first,” as if American foreign policy were synonymous with the nation. So it is only fair to point out that neocons, too, “blame America” when it doesn’t follow their policies. Reviewing a book about the 1920 presidential...
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Even More Great American Inventions
Plastic grocery bags guaranteed to spill or break. Mass telephoning of recorded sales messages (at suppertime). A minority group endowed with large, unprecedented privileges by law, that continues to complain of oppression by the “privileged” majority. Advertising and government spending on welfare defined as contributions to the Gross National Product. Professors of humanities who have...
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The Brezhnev Doctrine: Alive and Well
On August 21, 1968—40 years ago today—the Soviet army entered Czechoslovakia, followed by smaller contingents from four other Warsaw Pact countries. The occupation (“Operation Danube”) marked the end of the Prague Spring, a doomed attempt ...
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There May Be Many Mushroom Clouds in Our Future
The success of the Bush regime’s propaganda, lies and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9-11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost eight years, the U.S. media have served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable...
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More Great American Inventions
The Book of Moroni. Replacing the White Man’s Burden with the Multicultural Gender-Neutral Burden. The Lincoln cult. Politicians and journalists guaranteed to have integrity—they tell you so themselves. Deification of “education.” Along with the belief that all students are, or can be, above average. Disguising professional athletes as “students.” The infomercial. (Actually, a commenter on...
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Musharraf, Out of Tricks
Parties comprising Pakistan’s ruling coalition continue to be deeply divided in the aftermath of former president Pervez Musharraf’s sudden resignation last Monday. The late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N), which lead the coalition, were able to agree on impeachment charges that forced Musharraf out of...
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The Obamanation of Desolation
The appearance of John McCain and Barack Obama at Saddleback, California’s “purpose-driven” church marks the ultimate ascent of Rick Warren to the Gantry-in-Chief of the P.T. Barnum Church of America. Warren’s success is living proof of Barnum’s oft-quoted observation that there is a sucker born every minute. In the event, Obama’s imitation of Christianity was...
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Who Started Cold War II?
The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO. Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow’s superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in...
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Caucasian Games: The Score
A week after Georgia’s failed attempt to conquer the breakaway province of South Ossetia, the crisis is over. The only major issue still unresolved concerns Mikheil Saakashvili’s motivation. His order to attack on the night of August 7-8 was a breathtakingly risky move; but was it a calculated, or reckless gamble? That Saakashvili acted with...
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The State of the Game: The U.S., Russia, and the South Ossetian Conflict
As of Saturday, 16 August, both the Russian and Georgian sides of the conflict over the “unrecognized republics” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia had signed a six-point cease-fire agreement stipulating that Georgian forces must move back to their bases, while Russian troops are supposed to draw back to pre-conflict positions. The agreement does, however, leave...
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Good Night, Shyamalan
A review of The Happening (produced and distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox and UTV Motion Pictures; written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan) The star of M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film, The Happening, demonstrates once more how unaccountably loathe producers are to give their boom microphones top billing. During the showing I attended last night, the...