Commenter Artfldgr, our resident historian, has reminded us that yesterday was the anniversary of the Enabling Act in Germany, 1933. The Act (the full name of which can be translated as the “Law to Remedy the Distress of the People … Continue reading →
Mark Twain time travels: …Rome’s liberties were not auctioned off in a day, but were bought slowly, gradually, furtively, little by little; first with a little corn and oil for the exceedingly poor and wretched, later with corn and oil … Continue reading →
Still another piece on Rahm Emanuel, this one by Peter Baker and appearing in the NY Times Magazine. Reading it made me think once again that it’s a good thing Obama has been too full of himself and his own … Continue reading →
Obama has nobly declared that he’d “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” But wouldn’t a “really good” president ordinarily be re-elected? And if not, why not? Assuming that Obama is not obliquely referring to … Continue reading →
It has not escaped my attention that Scott Brown is a very good-looking man. Now, I know that’s not the only reason, or even the primary reason, that people voted for him. He has other tremendous assets that are far … Continue reading →
President Obama has often been compared to Jimmy Carter. But lately it occurs to me that there’s a lot of resemblance to presidential candidate Mike Dukakis, who failed a basic emotional test in his response to a hypothetical asked during … Continue reading →
It’s being widely described as an aplogy to Israel, and I suppose technically it’s true that Jimmy Carter has offered something of the sort, whether to enhance his grandson’s Atlanta election bid, or as a reflection of that old-fashioned Christmas … Continue reading →
I’m currently reading Francine Prose’s Anne Frank: the book, the life, the afterlife. It’s about the process by which Anne Frank wrote and then rewrote her diary, with an eye to its ultimate publication, and how her father edited her … Continue reading →
Abraham Lincoln was an unusual man in a number of ways, not the least of them his startling and haunting looks. In person, he must have been an imposing but somewhat daunting sight. Impossibly tall and very thin, in his … Continue reading →
It’s enough to make you weep. During Obama’s announcement that soon he’ll be making an announcement about the number of troops in Afghanistan, he said: After eight years ”” some of those years in which we did not have, I … Continue reading →
I’m reading the fascinating book They thought they were free: the Germans 1933-1945 by Milton Mayer (it’s also one of my book recommendations on the right sidebar). The author was an American journalist and educator who lived for a time … Continue reading →
There’s been a great deal of discussion on this recent thread about whether Obama is contemplating a tyrannical takeover of the statist type, and whether he can possibly succeed. I’m not going to address that topic again right now (perhaps … Continue reading →