Eleven years. That’s a formidable passage of time. New buildings are rising on the site of 9/11. The memorial fountains are in place, a somber and yet paradoxically beautiful tribute. The museum was stalled by a dispute, but maybe soon … Continue reading →
I’ve just finished my latest book group assignment, Waiting For Snow in Havana, a memoir by Carlos Eire about his childhood in pre-Castro Cuba, the Castro takeover, and the circumstances under which he was able to leave Cuba for the … Continue reading →
From Martin Amis’s book Koba the Dread: …[T]orture, among its other applications, was part of Stalin’s war against the truth. He tortured, not to force you to reveal a fact, but to force you to collude in a fiction. And … Continue reading →
From political science professor Jacqueline Stevens (via Volokh): It’s an open secret in my discipline: in terms of accurate political predictions (the field’s benchmark for what counts as science), my colleagues have failed spectacularly and wasted colossal amounts of time … Continue reading →
…is today. The French rallying cry “
Continue reading →…on the eve of the sort-of millennium makes for some fascinating reading in retrospect. I call it the “sort-of” millennium because it took place in late December of 1999, whereas the real millennium would have begun with the year 2001. … Continue reading →
While doing research for my recent post on Jews and Obama, I came across a site showing trends in Jewish voting in presidential elections from 1916 till now (I assume it’s based mostly on exit polling, although that’s not clearly … Continue reading →
Yesterday was the 41st anniversary of the Pentagon Papers’ publication. A year ago on the 40th anniversary, Daniel Ellsberg took a moment to air a few regrets that he didn’t release the Papers sooner, and to encourage the current possessors … Continue reading →
…Obama is losing significant support among African-Americans, not unlike what’s been happening among Jewish voters. It may be enough to swing North Carolina into Romney’s column. Note that I wrote that Obama is losing support. But I suppose it’s at … Continue reading →
It’s been forty years since this photo shocked Americans: Do you know the story behind the photo? I tell it in this article at PJ. Some of what you read may surprise you. [NOTE: I’ve written about the photo before, … Continue reading →
…gives Obama a searing history lesson. I’ve rarely seen Frum so angry. And Andrew Sullivan (known far and wide for his own calm rationality) is nonplussed at what he calls Frum’s hyperventilation: No, this was quite obviously a speechwriter’s fault, … Continue reading →
By now you probably know that Obama has committed another huge boo-boo: he has managed to outrage the Poles by referring to a Nazi death camp in Poland as a “Polish death camp.” The occasion was some scripted remarks during … Continue reading →