If you want know what’s wrong with higher education, look no further than Gene Nichol, the recently ousted president of Virginia’s College of William and Mary. First, he banished an iconic cross from the chapel in the school’s Sir Christopher Wren Building, the oldest continuously operating college building in the United States. Then, he let...
Author: R. Cort Kirkwood (R. Cort Kirkwood)
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Mr. Bush and the Mexican Murderer
When he was governor of Texas, President George W. Bush presided over the execution of 152 murderers. Yet today, as if to turn the phrase “Don’t mess with Texas” on its head, El Presidente wants to stop the Lone Star State from giving the hot shot to a Mexican murderer and rapist. As disturbing as...
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Mr. Kaine and the Muslim
Though Democrats in Virginia are generally more fiscally conservative than their brethren in such tax-and-spend environs as Massachusetts or New York, some issues require them to adopt the boilerplate liberal platitudes and positions. Immigration is one of them. Islam is another. Together, the two are a ticking time bomb, perhaps literally. The governor of Virginia...
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The Race Mafia Goes to Jena
If Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton believed raising Cain in Jena, Louisiana, would rekindle that old-time religion, they were sadly and predictably wrong. They hoped to reprise the glory days of Selma and Montgomery, but the media and most Americans forgot their vaunted march as quickly as its slogans wafted into the Bayou State’s muggy...
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Citizen Murdoch
If Rupert Murdoch gets his way, all Earthlings will read one newspaper and watch one television station. And Murdoch will own both. So even before the Media Monster That Ate New York and London had the Wall Street Journal for dessert, the ...
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Citizen Murdoch
If Rupert Murdoch gets his way, all Earthlings will read one newspaper and watch one television station. And Murdoch will own both. So even before the Media Monster That Ate New York and London had the Wall Street Journal for dessert, the liberal-media elite flew into a rage worthy of the Tasmanian Devil. He’ll interfere,...
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The GOP’s Clinton
During the Republican presidential debate on May 15, Ron Paul, the constitutionalist from Texas, flatly stated that the terrorist attacks on September 11 were retaliation for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani shot back a mendacious rejoinder: “That’s an ...
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The GOP’s Clinton
During the Republican presidential debate on May 15, Ron Paul, the constitutionalist from Texas, flatly stated that the terrorist attacks on September 11 were retaliation for U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Rudy Giuliani shot back a mendacious rejoinder: “That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that...
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Still Sorry After All These Years
With all the mud spattered on the Confederate Battle Flag of late, you knew it wouldn’t be long before Ol’ Virginny scrubbed up for Jamestown’s 400th anniversary with a grandiloquent apology for slavery. And Georgia, New York, and other former colonies of the original 13 will soon join the state in the confessional tub and...
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Race, Crime, and the Media
If five whites carjacked a black couple, tortured them for hours, then dumped the bodies, the national news media would descend upon the benighted city in which the dastardly crime occurred and, having reported the unspeakable deeds, subject the rest of us to rants on racism and harangues on hate. It happened with James Byrd,...
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Race, Crime, and the Media
If five whites carjacked a black couple, tortured them for hours, then dumped the bodies, the national news media would descend upon the benighted city in which the dastardly crime occurred and, having reported the unspeakable deeds, subject the rest of us to rants on racism and harangues on hate. It happened with James Byrd,...
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Still Sorry After All These Years
With all the mud spattered on the Confederate Battle Flag of late, you knew it wouldn’t be long before Ol’ Virginny scrubbed up for Jamestown’s 400th anniversary with a grandiloquent apology for slavery. And Georgia, New York, and other former colonies of the original 13 will soon join the state in the confessional tub and...
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âFamily Valuesâ: Illegal Aliens and Their Sex Crimes
Whatever President Bush says about the âfamily valuesâ of the growing horde of illegal Mexican immigrants, chilling newspaper accounts and cold data tell a different tale. On April 29, 2005, an illegal alien from Guatemala, Ronald Douglas Herrera Castellanos, was power washing a deck at the Nagle home in New City, New York. In her...
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“Family Values”: Illegal Aliens and Their Sex Crimes
Whatever President Bush says about the “family values” of the growing horde of illegal Mexican immigrants, chilling newspaper accounts and cold data tell a different tale. On April 29, 2005, an illegal alien from Guatemala, Ronald Douglas Herrera Castellanos, was power washing a deck at the Nagle home in New City, New York. In her...
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The Conservative Strikes Back
The Democrats picked Jim Webb to offer their response to the President’s State of the Union Address for the same reason they anointed him to face Republican Sen. George Allen in the November 2006 election: his opposition to the war in Iraq, which is bolstered by his surpassing valor in Vietnam. The risible aspect of...
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Wal-Mart and the Homosexuals
Just before Election Day, the Washington Post’s website featured a photo of President Bush landing in Bentonville, Arkansas, for a campaign stop. Why Bush thought going to Bentonville would help pachyderm prospects, we are not given to know, but we do know that Bush and the town’s most notorious corporate resident, Wal-Mart, are helping another...
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Wal-Mart Super-sized
Wal-Mart is hated by some people for the very reasons others love it. Liberals and leftists hate it because they allege Wal-Mart’s substandard wages turn employees into helots. Libertarians and some conservatives love it because Wal-Mart, expanding like the Blob, represents no-borders planetary capitalism. Wal-Mart is McDonald’s, only supersized. Whatever one’s opinion, a recent article...
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The “R” Word
The GOP’s latest legislative attack on the South provides a good look at just how far the Republicans have gone on their racial and multicultural guilt trip. In July, President Bush and his Myrmidons saddled the country, in general, and Dixie, in particular, with a 25-year extension of the ill-conceived Voting Rights Act. If ever...
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The New Reality
The Washington Post calls it “The New Reality.” Today, women aren’t just flying fighter aircraft or serving on ships, away from action on the ground: They fight in ground combat units, lose limbs, and die in battle. Amputee Lt. Dawn Halfaker, the main subject of the Post’s article (“Limbs Lost to Enemy Fire, Women Forge...
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“Roe vs. Wade for Men™”?
The schadenfreude in watching society collapse comes from knowing that leftist ideology, by way of the law of unintended consequences, ushered in the fall. Fifty years ago, no one would have thought that real men who instinctively protected women and children would transmogrify into eunuchs who send women into combat and murder the unborn. Yet,...
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Intelligent Design
Intelligent design had its day in court in Dover, Pennsylvania, and the result was sadly predictable. So was the reaction to it. The evolutionist and atheist left ballyhooed the decision as another victory for science over superstition, and for the separation of Church and state. The intelligent-design crowd vowed to continue fighting, and talk radio...
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A Classic Reconsidered
Do not look for last year’s best novel piled high in a fancy stack at the Books-A-Million or B. Dalton, with the belles lettres of Tom Clancy or John Grisham, because the best novel of 2002 was written 48 years ago. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson (recently deceased), hit the...
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Foreign Aid That Ain’t So Foreign
As 1995 drew to a close, Senate Democrats and Republicans were still debating Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms’ legislation to restructure the State Department and its ancillary agencies. Helms wanted to jettison the United States Agency for International Development, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the United States Information Agency, fold their functions...
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Everyone Deserves Justice
Senator Bob Packwood, a left-wing Republican, enjoyed the support of Republican bigwigs, including Senator Robert Dole, until he crossed the path of left-wing Democrat Barbara Boxer, who finally brought him to book for molesting women. Ironically, Packwood was a darling of the feminists. On abortion, he was Mr. Reliable. He supported federal funding for Planned...
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Back at the Front
When Senator Jesse Helms was in his prime, one newspaperman described his crusades on the Senate floor as “stompin’ trompin’ ultra-right action.” Ultra-rightists of the Helmsian kidney were not offended, and most were despondent when the most reliable man on the right went into ideological hibernation during the Reagan-Bush years. Helms went after a few...
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Expanding Power
The contract with America is clearly expanding the power of the federal government, and if you don’t believe it, take a look at yet another piece of legislation that will supersede local statutes and ordinances across the 50 states. It’s called the Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995, and it’s part of the GOP...
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The Green Barrettes
For 200 years, American fighting men have gone into battle without women. George Washington conquered the British at Yorktown without women. Grant defeated Lee without women. Marines raised the flag on Iwo Jima without women. But those fellows must have been made of sterner stuff than men today. Now, apparently, the men can’t hack it,...
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Sodomy and the Lash
Sodomy and the lash, according to Winston Churchill, were the outstanding features of the British Royal Navy. The United States Navy will be at least half-British, if the American courts have their way. The homosexuals’ battle plan to gain acceptance, which includes taking dates to the Officer’s Club, now involves 100 or so discrimination claims...
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Redefined Poverty
The National Academy of Sciences, in a 500-page tome, has redefined poverty. Since 1963, the definition of poverty has been based on a family with two children and the family’s cash income before taxes and what they spent on food. In 1963, a family earning below $3,100 was “poor.” Now the figure is $14,228. Because...
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Topic of Conversation
Concealed guns were the topic of a recent marathon hearing in the Texas State Legislature. In the middle of the hearing, one Suzanna Gratia suddenly marched over to Senator Royce West, pointed her index finger at him, and cocked her thumb. “Tell me. Senator,” said the good-looking chiropractor about a fellow nearby, “would you like...
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Contract With America
The contract with America is looking more and more like an election-year gimmick. Consider the strange alliance that Representative Henry Hyde (R-IL) has made with freshman Representative Lynn Woosley (D-CA) to federalize the collection of child support payments. If Congress ever passes the “Uniform Child Support Enforcement Act” as part of the COP’s “welfare reform”...
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Headlong into Insolvency
Entitlements are leading the country headlong to insolvency. These include a whole range of programs such as Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid, Medicare, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Food Stamps, etc. Some entitlements are “permanent appropriations,” which means the money to pay for them is automatically appropriated and distributed to whoever meets the...
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Finally Made It
John Paul II has finally made it. He’s right up there with Adolf Hitler and The Computer. On January 2, he joined the ranks of heroes and villains honored as Time magazine’s “Man of the Year.” Oddly enough. Time did not go out of its way to portray the Holy Father as you would expect....
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The Flat Tax
When the new guru of the Grand Old Party waddled up to the Speaker’s chair and took his oath, the clock began ticking. The GOP had 100 days to fulfill a good measure of its “Contract with America.” Since House Speaker Gingrich has been planning his takeover of Congress for more than two decades, just...
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Proposition 187
Proposition 187, California’s famous (or infamous) proposition to deny public services to illegal immigrants and their offspring, encouraged at least one member of Virginia’s General Assembly to propose similar legislation in this year’s session. The stout-hearted fellow’s name is Warren E. Barry, and he represents Fairfax County in Virginia’s Senate. For some time now, the...
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When the Election Returns
When the election returns showed Republicans in charge of Congress and Washington, D.C.’s Marion Barry with an insurmountable lead in the race for mayor, there was only one thing to do: uncork the Jack Daniels and celebrate. Statehood for D.C. went down the tubes. In electing Barry again, the city’s seething underclass was thumbing its...
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A Tragic Loss
A Washington Post story earlier this year began, “Gunfire erupted among a group of teenagers in a hallway at Dunbar High School.” Here was yet another tale of teenagers and guns in our nation’s capital, of shootings at school, of another day when class ended not with the ring of a bell but with the...
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Life on the Front Lines
“I’m a trained killer,” Army Captain Mimi Finch announced during a hearing of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. A thirty-something graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Captain Finch was the youngest member of the commission. Its job was to “assess the laws and policies...
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Increasingly Rare
Speaking English has become rarer than I thought. When I recently put my 1985 Plymouth Horizon up for sale in the classifieds of the Washington Post and the Washington Times, I wondered how many people would respond to my ad. Little did I know how many calls I’d actually get. Problem was, I couldn’t understand...
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Desire to Become an American Citizen
Michael Wu wants to become an American citizen. He is 25 years old and has lived in San Diego with his Taiwanese parents since 1980. He speaks English and Chinese, works packing newspapers for recycling, and attends school. He loves baseball and swimming and wants to join the U.S. Navy. By all accounts he is...
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Your Papers, Please
Nearly every film using Europe as a backdrop for international intrigue, especially those featuring Nazis in black leather trench coats, employs a scene in which the hero is crossing transnational borders on a slow-moving train. As he nervously exhales a cloud of blue smoke from an unfiltered cigarette, the authorities move from berth to berth...
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The ‘Conservative’ Decade
The 1980’s were supposed to be the conservative decade. Not in Fairfax County, Virginia. This past winter at Annandale High, the school’s students fought a battle over placing a $40 advertisement from a homosexual “youth group” in the school paper. Offered by the “Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League” (SMYAL), which is based in Washington, D.C.’s...
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Trading With Gorbachev
It was 1979 and the Carter administration was coming to a close when Larry Brady, the Commerce Department’s deputy director for export administration, testified before the Ichord Subcommittee of the House Armed Services panel. Run by conservative Democrat Richard Ichord, the subcommittee was trying to determine whether the Kama River Truck plant, which was built...
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Missionaries for Democracy
Fanning out over the globe to the far-flung backwaters of Azerbaijan and the jungles of Zimbabwe, a modern-day group of missionaries has been spreading the gospel of democracy. Inflamed with the zeal of Jesuits preaching the Good Book to wild Indians, these latter-day saints worship at the altar of pluralism, free elections, and human rights,...