As one sign of Chekhov’s greatness, his very name is invoked (in adjective form) to assess the work of others. But even while Chekhovian has been called into service on numerous occasions—in recent years, for example, to epitomize such disparate playwrights as Lanford Wilson and Beth Henley, or a bit earlier to position Lillian Hellman...
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How to Keep From Getting Deported
In September, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an illegal alien, although properly found to be a danger to the community, should not be removed from the United States because he considers himself to be a transgender woman. Finding that Mexico is not in the progressive vanguard in embracing transgender identity, the court...
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Constitutional Convention Would Open Pandora’s Box
Despite the increasing volume on both the right and the left of calls for a constitutional convention, the solution to our problems is not to change the Constitution or even throw it out, but to obey it.
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Nationalism Über Alles
There are probably as many theories of nationalism as there are nationalisms. Quite apart from the often extremely complex typologies used to classify nationalism, there are two principal definitions worth noting. In the first sense, nationalism is defined as a more or less voluntary aspiration of a people to establish itself as a nation, whether...
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The Neo-Ottoman Empire
Contrary to Washington’s official rhetoric, the U.S. government is an ally, not an opponent, of Islamic extremism—a foe, not a defender, of Western civilization. Not since the Turkish siege of Vienna (1526) has Europe faced the threat of a Muslim occupation of significant portions of the continent; it does so now because of the foreign...
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Reaping the Red’s Harvest
Diane Johnson: Dashiell Hammett: A Life; Random House; New York. Spade sat down in the armchair beside the table and without any preliminary, without an introductory remark of any sort, began to tell the girl about a thing that had happened some years before in the Northwest. He talked in a steady matter-of-fact voice that...
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Executive Poppycock
Terry Eastland, formerly of the Reagan Justice Department, has written a learned book explaining that, according to the Constitution, embarrassing crimes in an administration can only be investigated by prosecutors on a leash held by the President whom those crimes embarrass. Eastland’s target is Title VI of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which...
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Old & Old as New
Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans, LA; Volume II. Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans, LA; Volume III Linda Ronstadt and the Nelson Riddle Orchestra; What’s New; Electra/Asylum Records. On the back cover of Volume Ill, the entire Preservation Hall crew is grouped around a table on which is mounted a feast of...
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Forlorn Hopes
Writing your Congressperson. An unindicted Illinois governor. The American people ever understanding that government debt does not exist to cover necessary expenditures but to provide risk-free, tax-free income to capitalists. American leaders ever understanding the difference between defense and aggression. American leaders ever understanding the concept of “blowback,” that what goes around comes around. President,...
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The Lesson of the Roaring Parrot
There is an old cliche that no man is a hero to his valet. Some have been tempted to reply that it depends on the man, but I think it depends, rather, on the valet. To an observant eye, the world is peopled by ordinary men making strenuous, even heroic efforts to get through the...
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Flags as Symbols
At the end of the 60’s, the Establishment began a deliberate campaign to destroy a number of American symbols it considered inimical to black welfare. That these symbols—such as the various flags of the Confederate States of America and the song “Dixie”—are revered by a large section of our country for reasons not connected with...
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Monumental Stupidity
There is a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic North by Northwest in which the characters look out at a brooding Mount Rushmore from the dining-room terrace of the Sheraton-Johnson Hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota (since renamed the Hotel Alex Johnson). There are Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington, and Theodore Roosevelt peering back, and shortly after...
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From MLK to CRT
Martin Luther King cannot be retrofitted as a conservative. He was at heart an activist of the left, and his ideas were in large part a precursor to critical race theory.
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Arbitrary Power
Is it still possible to believe that the rule of law prevails in the United States of America? That concept—that we are governed by our laws and Constitution, and not the arbitrary power of dominant individuals or groups—is endangered as never before, especially after the 2020 presidential election, the loss of two Republican Senate seats...
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Kim Jong Il’s Disappearing Act
North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il is rumored to be ailing or even dead. Given his furtive ways and the nature of his regime, denials from Pyongyang are meaningless unless ...
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The Means and Meanings of Western Culture
“Ye that make mention of the LORD, keep ye not silence.” —Isaiah 62:6 I am holding in my hands a scatola musicale the size of a matchbox, which somebody gave me the other day as a frivolous keepsake. You can buy one just like it in any souvenir shop in Venice for two, maybe three dollars. ...
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Holding the Pass
It has been ten years since the death, at his home in the village of Mecosta, Michigan, of Russell Kirk, author of The Conservative Mind and one of the main spokesmen for organized American conservatism as it was known throughout his life. While there were other architects of conservatism who were Kirk’s contemporaries, almost all...
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Americans Souring on Biden—and Washington
The California recall election turned out well for the Democrats. With Gov. Gavin Newsom sinking in the summer polls, the party had been staring starkly at the prospect of losing the nation’s largest state and seeing its governor replaced by talk-show host Larry Elder, who had vaulted into the lead among the 46 candidates seeking...
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On Elian
Thomas Fleming is wrong when he writes (Cultural Revolutions, April) that, by Cuban law, Elian Gonzalez belongs to his next-of-kin, his father. According to Cuban law (specifically the Codigo de Familia Ley, No. 1289), parental authority is subordinated to “inculcating” the “internationalist spirit and socialist morality.” According to Article 95, section three, of this so-called...
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Gettysburg Agitprop
The field of Gettysburg is perhaps the closest thing to a sacred place, a Mount Olympus, to be found in our secular-minded land. The battle itself contains enough epic material for the admiration, contemplation, and inspiration of a hundred generations of Americans, if there should be so many. This is all lost on the U.S....
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War, Peace, and the Church’s Teaching
The amazing thing about the nuclear debate and the Catholic bishops’ participation in it is that the accumulated wisdom and experience of mankind, as well as the Church’s pronouncements on peace and war, are so completely ignored. This is quite a natural phenomenon on the part of so many lay debaters: it belongs also to...
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Girls of the Golden West
Prospective readers should not be put off by the words “women writers” in the title of this book. Catharine Savage Brosman’s emphasis is not on the ideological but rather on the intellectual and artistic identity of her subjects, which complement the masculine sensibilities of their male counterparts—Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Tom Lea, John S. Van...
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Sovreigntist Movement
Quebec’s sovreigntist movement could learn a thing or two from Liberal Party leader Jean Charest. His return to the premiership of the pro-vince should be a lesson to the sovereigntists that it is always darkest before dawn. The sovereigntists’ night, however, will last a while longer, as the provincial Liberals have smashed them to pieces...
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Innocent Leftists
A recent film festival sponsored by Human Rights Watch at New York’s Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center attracted the hard-core sandalistas of the Upper West Side, who filed in to watch—what else?—the Sandinistas and Contras in a cartoon of a Canadian documentary called The World Stopped Watching. The accompanying flyer asked, “What happens to...
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Suicide of the GOP—or Rebirth?
“If his poll numbers hold, Trump will be there six months from now when the Sweet 16 is cut to the Final Four, and he will likely be in the finals.” My prediction, in July of 2015, looks pretty good right now. Herewith, a second prediction. Republican wailing over his prospective nomination aside, Donald Trump...
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America’s Race Paradigm
The Economist brands racism as “America’s constant curse,” and the question of race unnerves almost everybody, as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 airily outlaws discrimination in government, commerce, and schooling on grounds of race, gender, age, religion, or national origin, and the new, openly politicized White House policy on affirmative action (“mend it, don’t...
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A Very Russian Drama
The aborted Wagner coup was an internal conflict within Russia's elites. Although resolved peacefully, it undermined Putin's authority and has increased the chance that he will be tempted to make risky moves—even nuclear ones.
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Cult of America, Part I
Whether or not America is or ever was a Christian nation is hotly debated. It is fashionable today on the left to ascribe whatever currently is deemed by it to be unacceptable—“trans phobia,” say—to the legacy of privileged patriarchal white men whose Christianity gave them an excuse to own slaves and otherwise oppress minorities. The...
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Journalists and Other Turncoats
America’s journalists enjoyed their finest hour during Vietnam—indulging in reporting that overwhelmed all objective presentation of American military action. A recent book about Robert Garwood by two former reporters for the Washington Star suggests that our newspapermen are not done yet. Marine Private First Class Robert Garwood, captured by the Vietcong in 1963 and released...
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The Russo-German Symbiosis in the First and Second World Wars
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the retreat of Leninist forces within the empire, hosannas have rung out in the Western world. “The Cold War is over, the Cold War is over,” the leaders of the West have exclaimed, and demands to turn swords into knitting needles have filled the air. At every...
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Squeaking Through
George W. Bush, as President of die United States, can be counted on in the first six months to . . . well, I should be honest here (with hand on heart). I don’t think any of us can say with much precision what my governor will accomplish in the new office whose door he...
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Free Men of a Republic
“The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.” I first heard this wise insight into the American way of life from Sam Ervin, who was, as I have since learned, quoting John Ciardi. I should not be surprised: Poets always get to the heart of the matter a...
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Union Without Unity
Break It Up; by Richard Kreitner; Little, Brown and Company; 497 pp., $30.00 Stamped on the United States’ three-dollar Continental bill in 1783 was the phrase, “The Outcome Is in Doubt.” A more appropriate phrase for our own time could hardly be found. It also serves as the subtext of journalist Richard Kreitner’s fascinating new book, which chronicles the...
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Pork Politics
“There is no distinctly native American criminal class, except Congress.” —Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar Mark Twain, responsible for the foregoing, was being funny. His remark, however, is steadily becoming a little more true and a little less funny. The U.S. Congress, through indirection and guile rather than by overt vote, has managed to give itself a...
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A Multicultural Mugging of Uncle Joe
In his opening statement at Wednesday’s Democratic debate in Detroit, Joe Biden addressed Donald Trump while pointing proudly to the racial and ethnic diversity of the nine Democrats standing beside him. “Mr. President, this is America and we are strong and great because of this diversity, not in spite of it. … We love it....
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Real Plain Speaking
In a healthy society people live with a wide time frame. They know and make use of the experience of their forebears. They build houses and plant trees that will be enjoyed by their descendants. Among the many things which our Founding Fathers took for granted but which we have lost was a social fabric...
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No, Antonin Scalia Is Not A Racist
Antonin Scalia has been a public critic of affirmative action since at least 1979, when the Washington University Law Review published his modest proposal of a “Restorative Justice Handicapping System.” Scalia’s position, simply put, is that the government should not engage in racial discrimination, a position reflected in numerous opinions authored by Scalia. There are...
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The Democratic Religion
A half-century ago, a politically ambitious intellectual celebrity named Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., defined liberalism’s role as that of offering solutions to problems and solving them. Even in the heyday of the Vital Center, that was far from a complete representation of liberalism’s self-perceived task. Today, when “advanced liberalism” (the phrase is James Kalb’s) is...
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Egypt’s Crisis (II)
The U.S. policy on Egypt is in disarray, and both camps distrust America—the Muslim Brotherhood by default, its opponents from experience. Hillary Clinton was widely perceived as Morsi’s key foreign aider and abettor during his attempt to grab complete power in the aftermath of last year’s presidential election, and with good reason. She came...
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Obama’s Fall Guy
Since America is in its worst economic mess in 70 years and since President Obama’s designated Mr. Fixit is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, you’d think the Obama presidency is in desperate shape. The reason? Mr. Fixit is surely the most derided man running the U.S. Treasury since Andrew Mellon cut spending and raised taxes amid...
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The Declaration and Its Iconoclasts
The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition (1995) by Willmoore Kendall and George W. Carey Catholic University of America Press 168 pp., $19.95 Ask the average American what his country stands for and he will likely answer “equality.” If that person studied a bit of American history, he or she would then cite the...
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Johnny Johnson
For Johnny Johnson, it was always Saturday night. He was the stuff of fictional heroes who prevail over their circumstances. A British army doctor who later joined the Royal Navy, Johnny came from a broken home, never married, and eventually saw his only child given up for adoption. When he left school in the depths...
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The Modern Conception of Sovereignty
The question of sovereignty reappeared at the end of the Middle Ages, when many began to ask not only what is the best possible form of government, or what should be the purpose of the authority held by political power, but what is the political bond that unites a people to its government? That is...
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Kosovo and Its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy
The struggle for Kosovo between Christian Serbs and Muslim Albanians dates back to 1389, when the Serbs were defeated by, and their lands annexed to, the Ottoman Empire. Muslim rule lasted over four centuries and resulted in several waves of forced migrations of Serbs from Kosovo. The current Albanian majority there was achieved more recently—the...
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The Golden Goose: A Recollection
In the bright, warm autumn of 1947 that followed a chilly summer, several hundred bewildered 17-year-olds found the Ohio State University campus in Columbus swarming with an alien and formidable species: veterans. The war, though well over, was still more a reality than a memory. The Great Depression was over too, having disappeared insensibly in...
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Fillet of Soul
Entertainment industry awards shows are, almost by definition, public orgies of televised backslapping. Still, TV viewers stick with them, not so much to discover what the best movie, TV show, or record is—for each viewer already knows what’s best—but in order to see personalities in environments that put them out of character and in competition...
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The Crisis of Controlled Thinking
A General’s Life by Omar N. Bradley and Clay Blair; Simon and Schuster; New York. General of the Army Omar N. Bradley’s military career spanned a half-century of dramatic change for the United States. When he entered West Point in 1911, the United States had few military interests beyond its borders; when he retired in 1953,...
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Republicans Bet the Farm
President Trump, every Republican senator, and the GOP majority in Speaker Paul Ryan’s House just put the future of their party on the line. By enacting the largest tax cut since the Reagan administration, the heart of which is cutting the corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent, Republicans have boldly bet the farm. They...
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On Abortion, Trump Is Moderate—While Harris Is Maximalist
The staunchest pro-lifers don't want to settle for Trump’s compromise, but the alternative on the ballot in November isn’t an absolute anti-abortion position.
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Anarcho-Tyranny 2020
As I began to contemplate the theater of the absurd that we Americans have been living through in recent days, I found the most useful place to begin was an essay by Sam Francis published in Chronicles 26 years ago, “Anarcho-Tyranny USA.” In this long, thoughtful piece, Francis contrasts the eagerness to criminalize what had...