Category: Cultural Revolutions

In July, the Pope endorsed a statement that ruffled some feathers in the Protestant aviary, and it turns out that the statement actually revealed that a number of Protestants aren’t all that Protestant anymore.  They demonstrated this slide away from Reformation confidence by being upset by the revelation that Pope Benedict XVI still believes that...

I was one of many who sighed with relief when Conrad Black was convicted in U.S. District Court July 13.  He is exceedingly litigious, and word had gone out that anyone who had suggested anything untoward in Black’s management of his newspaper empire could expect writs should the great man be found not guilty. But...

A day or two after the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, I attended a meeting at a think tank in Washington to discuss the economic prospects of an independent Palestinian state.  One of the speakers outlined a very economically bullish vision for the new Palestine—the West Bank plus the Gaza Strip. ...

“Catholic Members of Congress Express Concern Over Church Sanctions,” the press-release headline blared.  Finally, I thought, Catholic politicians are waking up to the increasingly tight legal restrictions being brought to bear on religious groups.  After all, California and New York recently passed laws that force Catholic hospitals to provide contraception as part of their health...

Paul Krugman is a professor of economics at Princeton University who, in his eagerness to obtain appointive office in a future Democratic administration, has moonlighted for some years now as a columnist for the New York Times, where he has worked assiduously to develop talking points for Democratic candidates.  His ambition is transparent, and it...

On April 25, Boris N. Yeltsin, Russia’s first postcommunist leader, was buried in Moscow.  Many foreign dignitaries attended the funeral, praising the late president’s achievements.  U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton also bid farewell to their partner in dismantling the Soviet Union. Yeltsin’s death, seven years after his resignation at the dawn of...

The “Fort Dix Six” may not be the smartest group of would-be jihadists we have seen, but their story should tell us something about how lax immigration and border-security policies put this country at risk. The six Muslims were arrested in New Jersey in May, for plotting to attack Fort Dix, which is known as...

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...

Ryan Henry, principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy, held a briefing on April 23 about the future opening of the new Africa Command (AFRICOM).  It will join other U.S. commands that coordinate military and interagency operations for the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific.  In her influential book The Mission, Dana...

President Bush was back in Yuma, Arizona, in early April, one year after making promises to secure the border in exchange for a “comprehensive” immigration-reform bill that would increase legal immigration, open the door for up to 20 million illegal aliens to remain in the United States, and encourage yet another surge of illegal aliens...

Beijing announced in early March that it plans to boost China’s defense budget by 17.8 percent in the coming year.  That fairly hefty increase continues a pattern of double-digit hikes over the past decade.  Both the United States and China’s neighbors in East Asia are expressing growing uneasiness about the trend. Far more troubling, however,...

Two years ago, upon learning of President Bush’s nomination for president of the World Bank, I expressed relief (Cultural Revolutions, May 2005) that, “at his new post, [Paul] Wolfowitz will not be able to do nearly as much damage as he has done at the Pentagon.”  The damage, however, has continued.  For the past three...

Apologists for Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted in March of perjury and obstruction of justice, are relying on two lines of argument: that Libby was the Bush administration’s “fall guy,” and that Libby’s problem was his faulty memory—the “busy-man defense.” It is true that...

Last November, South Dakota’s pro-life community was a united force.  Conditions had changed significantly by the end of February, when the effort to ban almost all abortions in the state suffered its second major defeat in less than four months, this time through the votes of eight state senators who killed a bill in committee...

The husband routinely beat his 26-year-old German-born wife, the mother of their two young children, and threatened to kill her when the court ordered him to move out of their Hamburg apartment.  Police were called repeatedly to intervene.  The wife wanted a quick divorce—without waiting a year after separation, as mandated by German law—arguing that...

The problem of Kosovo, an already complex equation with many unknowns, is getting more vexing by the day.  On February 2, U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari unveiled his much-anticipated plan for the final status of the southern Serbian province, which has been under NATO-U.N. occupation since Bill Clinton’s war against the Serbs in 1999.  While...

Recently, I attended a conference in Washington, D.C., that focused on the dilemmas involved in the expansion of NATO.  One of the American speakers, referring to the membership of the small Baltic nation of Estonia in the U.S.-led security organization, expressed concern that the Estonians could force the Americans into a military confrontation with the...

In late February, the presidential candidate of France’s Front National (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, received widespread press coverage for saying, in an interview with La Croix, that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was merely “an incident,” adding that the 3,000 who died should be seen in the context of...

President George W. Bush’s sixth State of the Union Address was his best so far, rhetorically speaking.  As befits a President in deep trouble, his body language was that of a beta male, and he smiled demurely.  His tone was calm and conciliatory, at times to the point of pleading.  To the uninitiated, Mr. Bush...

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...

As the editorial director of Antiwar.com, I have been in a good position to chart the failed predictions and laughable prognostications of the War Party—and, while it may be in somewhat bad taste to say, “I told you so,” as the latest news indicates that we have surpassed 3,000 American dead (not to mention 34,000...

Sen. Ted Kennedy’s alleged “populism” and liberal policymakers’ newfound embrace of states’ rights are comic diversions in the ongoing debate surrounding the federal minimum wage.  But the prize for most absurd should be awarded to Congress, which continues to give the American people the spectacle of political haranguing over an extra 70 cents per hour...

To taunt and curse a condemned man who is about to meet his Maker is one of the lowest forms of human depravity.  The practice, commonly associated with lynching, brings to mind the quasijudicial bestialities of Dzerzhinsky and Roland Freisler’s Volksgerichtshof, Parisian tricoteuses, and various ethno-tribal atrocities down through the ages. The hanging of Saddam...

Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Mary, found a way to impregnate herself so that she and her lover, Heather Poe, whom Mary met while playing ice hockey 15 years ago, can rear a child.  Grandma is thrilled.  “Dick and I both are very much looking forward to this new baby,” said Lynne Cheney.  Mary...

Had President George W. Bush fired Donald Rumsfeld a month before, rather than a day after, November 7, the Republican Party could have retained control of both houses.  Still, doing it late is better than not doing it at all.  Rumsfeld was a liability and an embarrassment, the embodiment of all that went wrong in...

Two facts about George W. Bush now seem incontestable: He has been the neoconservative chief executive par excellence, and he has become a failed president.  Bush has led the nation to war in Iraq, branded Iran and North Korea as members of the “Axis of Evil,” and declared in his Second Inaugural Address that America’s...

In 1994, the Republicans, for the first time in 40 years, took control of both Houses of Congress.  In 2000, after some controversy, the GOP secured the presidency.  Now, they have lost both houses and look to be well on their way to losing the presidency in 2008.  Parties lose when they don’t give their...

Abortion opponents in South Dakota had a simple message for voters in the mid-term election: Vote what you know in your heart is right.  More than 148,000 people heeded the call, voting to retain a state law that banned virtually all abortions in South Dakota.  Their numbers, however, amounted to just 44 percent of the...

Two muslim terrorists held under Britain’s controversial “control order powers”—an Iraqi with possible links to Al Qaeda and a British citizen likely connected to the London Underground bombings last year—have escaped, as Tony Blair’s government reluctantly acknowledged on October 16.  Both were suspected of being linked to international terrorist groups, and, in a sane world,...

North Korea has now barged into the global nuclear-weapons club by conducting a nuclear test.  The six-party talks designed to get Pyongyang to relinquish its ambitions for a nuclear arsenal have effectively failed.  Even if North Korea can be induced to return to those talks (which Pyongyang has boycotted for a year), the prospect that...

In Iraq, as of this writing, the death toll for U.S. soldiers has reached 100—in the month of October alone.  So far, 2,813 members of the U.S. Armed Forces have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.  At least another 21,266 have been wounded, as reported by the Pentagon.  This...

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...

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.  Back in the 1960’s, Oriana Fallaci was a “brave,” leftist, feminist hackette.  Her iconoclastic interviews were praised by the chattering classes for bringing the genre to the heights of postmodernism: She was lauded for doing for journalism what Susan Sontag was doing for fiction.  But whereas the latter progressed to become an...

Keith Ellison won the nomination of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party on September 12 to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which centers on the city of Minneapolis; he seems all but certain to win the general election against the Republican nominee, Alan Fine. Ellison’s primary victory has generated tremendous national media attention, because his likely triumph in...

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...

Sir Alfred Sherman, R.I.P.  My dear friend and long-time associate Sir Alfred Sherman, who died in London on August 26, started his long political life as a Stalinist and ended it as one of the few “paleo” thinkers in today’s Britain.  He will be remembered as the man who first invented “Thatcherism” and then explained...

The pro-life principles of President Bush have often been questioned (not least in these pages), but, in late August, the President confounded his critics and firmly established his credentials as the most pro-life occupant of the Oval Office since Bill Clinton. In 1999, the Food and Drug Administration approved “Plan B,” the “morning-after pill,” for...

The European Union will set up rapid-reaction teams to deal with an increasing flood of illegal African immigrants on Europe’s southern flank.  The decision was made by the European Commission at a July 19 meeting spurred on by complaints from Spain, Italy, and Malta.  Illegal immigration to Spain via the Canary Islands has increased sharply...

The Neoconservative dream of spreading “democracy” in the Middle East, a delusion wholeheartedly embraced by President George W. Bush, is rapidly becoming a nightmare.  Pursuit of this utopian vision has already strengthened the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, propelled Hezbollah into the Lebanese government, and brought Hamas to power in the Palestinian Authority.  In Iraq, it...

Republicans, including President George W. Bush, may have some explaining to do if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the Defense of Marriage Act. Suppose a lot of people were counting on you to accomplish something and there were two ways—one hard and one easy—to do it.  Which would you choose?  If you picked the...

President Bush, in the words of FAUX News man Stephen Colbert, “lost his veto virginity” on July 19, five-and-a-half years into his administration.  What issue was important enough for him to break his apparent vow of legislative chastity?  A congressional appropriation, passed overwhelmingly by both the Senate and the House, that would have provided taxpayer...

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state, declared, at a press briefing he gave after returning from a recent trip to the Balkan hot spots, that former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic “ordered the execution of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica.” Over the last few years, I have sought to get at the truth...

Reading obituaries is part of reading the newspaper and can be oddly rewarding.  It’s instructive and even inspiring to read about lives and careers.  Sometimes, we read about strangers, sometimes celebrities, sometimes even people we know—or knew.  The gravity of the occasion requires a formulaic response: Without considering the matter, we all know how an...

Church conventions are the business of summertime in democratized Christian America.  While normal, sane men are taking their boys to ball games or running trot lines by the light of a Coleman lantern, grown men (and women) are sitting in earnest before professional parliamentarians and video monitors in conference centers across the fruited plane, armed...

The Holy Land’s long, hot summer started with a spate of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants based in Gaza on the Israeli border town of Sderot.  Over 100 homemade Kassems had been fired by the last week of June, resulting in civilian casualties and calls for the return of Israeli troops to the Gaza Strip—a...

The FBI’s most recent Ten Most Wanted List was published on May 6.  In this, the fifth year of our Global War on Terror, it may come as a surprise to some that the latest addition to the list isn’t a terrorist or even a murderer, but Warren Jeffs, the leader of a bizarre sect,...

Porter Goss wasn’t in a mood to discuss his May 5 departure from his post as CIA director after only two years on the job.  Following the announcement of his resignation, Goss cryptically told reporters that his leaving was “just one of those mysteries.”  Indeed, it was—neither Goss nor President Bush was in a hurry...

Violence in Iraq has escalated, following the February 22 attack on the revered Shiite shrine al-Askari in Samarra.  Some 200 Sunni and Shiite mosques were attacked, burned, or bombed in the two-month period after the attack.  The weekly toll of explosions, retaliatory attacks, and targeted killings has prompted many commentators to describe the chaotic conflict...

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) received a letter on March 23 from a gaggle of organizations representing the financial industry.  The group included the American Bankers Association, the Bankers’ Association for Finance and Trade, the Investment Company Institute, the Securities Industry Association, the Bond Market Association, the Financial Services Forum, and the Financial Services Roundtable.  They...

The Bush administration could be cooking up an “October surprise”—an attack on Iran—to boost the lagging fortunes of the President and the Republican Party, according to a recent editorial by Patrick J. Buchanan.  With midterm elections coming in November, the Bush White House has been cranking up the anti-Iran rhetoric, presenting Tehran’s nuclear program as...