The Other McCain

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

It’s Hard to Beat a Man …

. . . who refuses to quit. Haley Barbour quit. Donald Trump quit. Mike Huckabee quit. Guess who didn’t quit? Four years ago at the studios of WSB Radio in Atlanta, I interviewed talk-radio host Herman Cain, who had only recently recovered from cancer. He smiled as he vowed, “Death’s going to have to catch […]

Royalists for Social Justice?

After yesterday’s post about the royal wedding, I decided to develop the theme into a column for The American Spectator: Conservatives, predisposed to defend all things traditional and hierarchical, might naturally be expected to admire the British monarchy. But the remarkable fact is that most of the Americans obsessed by the royal wedding (and the […]

Revolving Doors: Freire Exits Examiner, Joins NMS; Klein Exits Spectator, Joins Examiner; Hot Air Is Hiring (Not Me)

One of the things that has always amazed me about D.C. is how frequently young people change jobs here. You go to a cocktail reception and run into a think-tank guy you met at a reception six weeks ago: “Hey, how are things at [name of think tank]?” And he says, “Oh, I’m at [name […]

I Don’t Hate Trains

“What, exactly, do Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians have against trains? Seriously, what?” — David Weigel, Slate Few things — not even the threat of a coffee shortage — bother me quite so much as what I call the Existential Theory of Liberalism: Everything that exists must be subsidized by the federal government; ergo, to argue […]

Sorry, Charlie

The Trainwreck Called Charlie has taken up entirely too much of my attention lately, but at least I got an American Spectator column out of it: Celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Drew Pinsky described Sheen’s condition as a “psychiatric emergency,” most probably the manic phase of bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression) and requiring hospitalization: “He’s in […]

Ohio Unions, Ohio Thugs, Ohio Police

From the Columbus Dispatch: The volatility surrounding the collective-bargaining debate spilled into the night Wednesday when police were called to a German Village restaurant after a group verbally accosted a gathering of Senate Republicans. After the vote on Senate Bill 5, seven Republican senators, including President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, grabbed dinner at the Easy […]

OMFG: Zeitgeist Is ‘Right-Wing’?

It’s the liberal Rorshach test — show them an inkblot and liberals scream, “Blame conservatives!” Loughner’s Conspiracy-Fueled Rampage Has Origins on the Fringe Right Now, you don’t have to believe that Sarah Palin purchased the gun for Loughner and whispered in his ear about targets to believe that the rhetoric on the far, far right played […]

When in Doubt, Blame Palin!

#BlamePalin became a sarcastic Twitter hashtag yesterday. Among other things, I blamed her for Auburn’s game-winning field goal against Oregon. Also, my four-day streak without an Instalanche. Liberals have made Palin their all-purpose scapegoat, the demon-figure whose existence relieves them of the burden for coming up with rational explanations of why bad things happen. The evasion of […]

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