In the Times a couple of weeks ago, Thomas L. Friedman wrote one of the most interesting, alarming, and possibly prophetic pieces I have read this century. Let me quote it at length: “It’s hard to have a conversation today with any worker, teacher, student or boss who doesn’t tell you some version of this: …
A version of this article first appeared in The Washington Monthly on April 21, 2013. Apparently on Friday, before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apprehended, Sen. Lindsey Graham was already torquing up the hysteria by taking the position that Tsarnaev not receive his Miranda warning before being interrogated. Graham—who, not to imply anything from this, is one …
This piece was originally written for The Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog on April 20, 2013: This is a true story. Thirty years ago, my wife and I visited her family at their home in Sundance, Wyoming. Ginny’s brother Rick and his wife Sue took us out for a drink at what passed for the …
This piece was originally written for The Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog on April 20, 2013: Well, not really revise, but let me go on for a minute about the pro-minority biases that affect our democracy. We were all schooled about the genius our Founding Fathers exhibited when they loaded up the Constitution with checks …
PLEASE ALLOW ME TO REVISE AND EXTEND MY REMARKS. . . Read More »
This piece was originally written for The Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog on April 20, 2013: In the aftermath of the gun control vote, Joe Scarborough and others who favored the measure could be heard maintaining with steely resolve, “This issue is going to backfire on the opponents in the 2014 election.” Well, maybe. I …
This piece was originally written for The Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog on April 20, 2013: Good morning, ardent Washington Monthly fans. I am pleased to be among you. A bit daunted, too; compared to the news-gorging, policy-devouring flamethrowers who usually occupy this spot, I’m a old spitballer trying to get by on craft and …
Having spent all that (mostly enjoyable) time in graduate school reading The Prince, I was delighted to see that Professor Stephen J. Milner of the University of Manchester has discovered the arrest warrant for Niccolò Machiavelli hidden away in a state archive. The 500-years-old document was the catalyst for Machiavelli’s writing The Prince. When the …
Ed Koch died last Friday at the age of 88. In retirement, he became a beloved figure, a loud, opinionated uncle, unhip in his easy gracelessness, comfortable in his blotchy skin. But in his prime, he was a large figure, with a great intellect and enormous confidence, vain, nasty, ebullient, fun. One of his greatest …
As my friend James Rosen of Fox News has reported at Greta Van Susteren‘s blog, in the aftermath of the Newtown mass murder, NRA membership actually increased. “A source at the NRA tells Fox News, based on his access to an internal memo prepared by the organization’s membership division, that since the Newtown massacre, the …