The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Fear and Loathing at the #NRISummit: Can We Survive the Sarcasm Deficit?

Perhaps National Review‘s famed cartoonist Roman Genn can do a savage caricature of the donnybrook brawl I’ve been trying to incite for this weekend’s National Review Institute “Future of Conservatism” Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Was it a smart career move to kick Jonah Goldberg in the knee? No, of course […]

Criticism From a Friend: Can We Help Victims of Random Sarcasm Syndrome?

Dear Deranged Gunmen: If you’re contemplating murder-suicide, how about trying the “suicide” part first? #caring — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 16, 2012 “We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and […]

‘He Was a Quiet Ewok, Kept to Himself a Lot. Kind of a Loner, I Guess You’d Say’

“Adam Lanza has been a weird kid since we were 5 years old. As horrible as this was, I can’t say I am surprised . . . Burn in hell, Adam.” — Tim Dalton, neighbor quoted in the New York Daily News Let’s face it, if I should die in headline-worthy fashion — losing control […]

Paranoid Theory: ‘Karl Rove Was Out Raising Money to Keep Santorum Alive’

James Yanke at Reaganite Republican links to an article at Business Insider in which Grace Wyler gives credence to a paranoid theory offered by evangelical leader David Lane: Karl stepped on Rick Perry and then Newt Gingrich every chance he got — albeit with deceit and sophistication — and elevated Mitt Romney at strategic, crucial […]

Bad Memories of Bayshore Boulevard

(Left to right) Natalie Khawam, Gen. David Petraeus, Dr. Scott Kelley, Jill Kelley and Holly Petraeus at a party in Tampa. It was August and a hurricane was hovering off the Florida coast that Monday afternoon in Tampa when I set out to find Jim Antle. The senior editor of The American Spectator had my […]

ORCA: Romney’s Killer Fail

Back home this evening after a 12-day road trip to Ohio, I’m perusing accounts of how the Romney campaign recruited 37,00 volunteers to participate in its ORCA project to monitor Election Day turnout, a project that turned out to be a spectacular failure of epic proportions. The name that keeps coming up in these accounts […]

Deer: They’re Also Racist

This is the front end of Ali Akbar’s Hyundai Sonata: Is this my fault? It was my idea to go to Ohio, and Ali offered to drive, despite the known fact that deer hate me. Somehow, I blame myself. It’s like living through a weird Twilight Zone episode, scripted by a grim Calvinist. Strange and […]

On the Encroaching Gloom: ‘We Are Permanently and Irretrievably Screwed’

GAHANNA, Ohio Sitting here sorting through the debris of last night’s utter catastrophe, I saw an e-mail from a friend in Colorado, who wrote to say that he shared my dark mood. So I sent him a brief reply: Yeah. The full implementation of ObamaCare — how can we possibly recover from that? And it […]

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