The Other McCain

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

The Very, Very Bad President

It is nowadays said by many that Barack Obama is the worst president in American history. If this is so, President Obama will have eclipsed a mark that most observers believed would stand unchallenged until the final trumpet: The abysmal record of James Earl “Jimmy” Carter. One of the reasons, I believe, that so many […]

Whatever Happened to AuH2O?

“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” — Edmund Burke, 1790 In 1964, Sen. Barry Goldwater (a) voted against the Civil Rights Act, and (b) was the Republican nominee for president. Goldwater’s argument against the Civil Right Act was that it constituted an infringement of property rights. Ron […]

Once in a Lifetime: Military Policy Edition

by Smitty Just a few days ago, I sketched what I think are the major points in the last century that have marked our national course to ruin. Among the major inputs to the whole dog’s breakfast we face is military policy. Now, I grew up a Navy brat, enlisted in the Navy, took a […]

Matthew Yglesias, Neo-Confederate?

Reporting the findings of a recent academic analysis, our “progressive” (nudge, nudge) friend concludes: The basic story here would be something like northern manufacturing interests wanted to keep the southern client base behind the US tariff wall in order to maintain privileged access to the market rather than compete on a level playing field with […]

A History Lesson for Janelle Harris

“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles, and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. . . . I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look […]

‘Avenge the Patriotic Gore That Flecked the Streets of Baltimore’

The state song, “Maryland, My Maryland” (sung to the tune of “O Tannenbaum”) is actually a pro-Confederate anthem written in 1861. The “patriotic gore” was shed by 12 secessionist civilians shot dead by Union troops in Baltimore on April 19 of that year. And as for the song’s lyrics in the ninth verse — “Huzza! […]

Sputnik or Fort Sumter?

While I was busy commemorating today’s 150th anniversary of the bombardment that began the Civil War, it seems those commie comrades at Google decided to go with the “Bolsheviks in Space” motif: Bob Belvedere is suitably sarcastic: “Sure, why the Hell not. The old Soviet Union was not so bad, you know . . .” We’ve come […]

Fort Sumter 1861: ‘Strike a Blow!’

Today, a most momentous anniversary is the subject of my column at The American Spectator: Visitors to Princeton, New Jersey, may find there the grave of a former New York state judge who died in 1919 at the advanced age of 90. Judge Roger Pryor was not from New Jersey, however, nor was he a […]

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