So what happens when you take a ruling class as wicked and as corrupt as ours is, and you insist that they obsess over what might be called “appearance ethics”? You get hypocrisy on stilts, that’s what happens. In the post-Watergate era, the nation became consumed with the appearance of impropriety. And while it is …
Justification and the Violent Left
The recent shooting of Rep. Scalise has brought the old complaint about double standards to the surface again. Absolutely everyone knows that if the shooter had been a Tea Party guy, and if the baseball team in question had been the Democrats, the pieces would still be falling out of the sky. Something really is …
A Dead Rat on the High Altar
So President Trump pulled us out of the Paris Climate Shakedown, and I have been frankly surprised at the extent and depth of the progressive meltdown over it. The reaction has been fervently religious, as though the president left a dead rat on the high altar or something. So many liberals have their hair on …
A Proposal for the President
Dear Mr. President, I should begin by acknowledging that I was not among those who supported your campaign for the Republican nomination, and that I did not vote for you in the general election. This was centrally because—speaking frankly—I did not trust your professed conversion to the pro-life cause. At the same time, I need …
And Me Without My Tinfoil Hat . . .
Let me say at the outset that I am saying nothing one way or the other about the particular circumstances concerning the murder of Seth Rich—other than the obvious fishiness of the thing. I don’t know anywhere near enough to talk about the case itself in any detail. But we do know that Julian Assange …
No Such Thing as 4-D Checkers
Someone once defined a liberal as someone who does not know how to take up his own side in an argument. By that definition, Trump is certainly no liberal. He only knows how to take up his own side in an argument and, depending on the day, it could be various sides of the same …
A Tomahawk Missile Strike Report Card
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Trump, Thank you for enrolling your son in our program, and we are pleased to present our first quarter foreign policy assessment to you now. Over all, we are pleased with your Donald’s progress although, as you will see, there are some areas of significant concern. We will start with the …
A Richly Deserved Thwapping
Allow me to make a few random observations in pursuit of a larger truth. First, Charles Murry recently wrote a book—By the People—a book that had a marvelous phrase in the subtitle, which was “liberty without permission.” Secondly, and this might seem like a lurch, Nancy and I used to have a very good health …
At Least Three Apostles
A parishioner sent me a link to this NYT op-ed because it was floating around social media, and she wanted to know if I had a quick take on it. I do, actually. If you don’t want to read the piece, knowing that you will never get those minutes back again, the set-up is a …
Where Corruption is Total
Defenders of the status quo in the intelligence world are beginning to sound an awful lot like Uncle Andrew from The Magician’s Nephew. “No, Digory. Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.” …