R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. from Creators Syndicate

CNN Plays Dirty Too for 05/17/2012

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — I first heard it two, perhaps two and a half years ago. A sage sitting in his New York City office pronounced it. Said the sage to me: "This is going to be the dirtiest presidential campaign in history." I would pass on my prescient friend's name, but he is a gentleman of high profile. It would be best if he were to continue his life unmolested by the Living Saint i ...

Updated: Thu May 17, 2012

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Conrad Black's Example for 05/10/2012

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Conrad Black is back in Canada. He controlled the third-largest string of English-language newspapers in the world before he became entoiled with the Unites States Department of Justice. For his friends, it was a terrible loss. We missed him, and we have missed his newspapers. He made the Telegraph papers in London a beacon of civilized discourse and a sound source of news. T ...

Updated: Thu May 10, 2012

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Osama bin Laden A Year Later for 05/03/2012

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

It has now been a year since Osama bin Laden became a ghost courtesy of the United States SEALs. I had long since come to the conclusion that Osama became crˆpes suzettes for the worms back in Tora Bora in December 2001, and I was somewhat stubborn in my belief. Yet he fooled me and the student of Araby Mark Steyn and a few other pundits. I shall be a big enough man to admit it. I was wrong.

Updated: Thu May 03, 2012

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I Take the Secret Service Scandal Personally for 04/26/2012

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Washington — When you have a young woman screaming in a hallway about some sort of grievance she has with you, you have a problem. Even a Secret Service agent, surrounded by his buddies, has a problem. I know about this sort of thing from my work in the archives pursuant to my researches as a presidential historian.

One thinks back to the late 1940s of Elizabeth Bentley, an America ...

Updated: Thu Apr 26, 2012

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The Tea Party Goes Local for 04/12/2012

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — All is bleak. All is woe! I speak of the tea party movement, the movement of 2009 and 2010 that was the hot news story of those years and led to the Republican rout of the Democrats in 2010. Now the tea party movement is, according to reports in the media, in decline.

Was it extremist? Was it racist? Distinguished Americans such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton said it ...

Updated: Thu Apr 12, 2012

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Romney Is Coming On Strong for 04/05/2012

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — There are some campaign advisers who would counsel former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to jog on the campaign trail tirelessly, probably in short pants and with a catchy T-shirt emblazoned with some memorable phrase, say, "Fred Fna Ate Here," a la Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Jimmy Carter started the presidential candidates' jogging craze, and since him there have be ...

Updated: Thu Apr 05, 2012

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The Ryan Budget Is for Everyone for 03/29/2012

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — As America rings up another $3 trillion-plus budget — almost a historic peacetime 25 percent of gross national product — and borrows another $1.3 trillion to pay for it, one should not be surprised that the usual mob of special pleaders is fuming at anyone who has the temerity to suggest a sane alternative. These are the new Democrats and they do not mind putting ...

Updated: Thu Mar 29, 2012

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The Overextended America for 03/22/2012

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — We in America today live in a country circumscribed by entitlement policies devised by an America that steadily has been disappearing. Those policies established more than a generation ago cannot possibly, in mathematical or demographic terms, support the America of the present, much less the America of the future. That is the stark reality. We need to reform those policies, ...

Updated: Thu Mar 22, 2012

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What About Free Speech? for 03/15/2012

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — For a couple of years now, I have been talking about the Kultursmog, the utterly polluted state of our political culture. Those who pollute it are the liberals. Kultursmog is the only form of pollution that they approve of, but they do approve of it mightily, and of course, they are the chief contributors to its noxious fumes. Now they are using it to kil ...

Updated: Thu Mar 15, 2012

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Miss Fluke's Fluke for 03/08/2012

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — I like to think of Miss Sandra Fluke's contretemps with the madly admired Mr. Rush Limbaugh as, well, a fluke. She objected to his joke about her being "a slut" and "a prostitute," and hesto presto the part-time Georgetown University law student struck pay dirt. You object to my characterization of her as "part-time"? How could she be ...

Updated: Thu Mar 08, 2012

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Boone-Doggle? for 03/01/2012

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — The other day, the estimable Wall Street Journal editorial board took issue with the equally estimable T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oilman, over the Nat Gas Act. The Journal argued with its customary lucidity that Pickens' idea of subsidizing natural gas, even for a short period, was ill-advised. To my mind, the Journal left one argument out, to wit: national security.

...

Updated: Thu Mar 01, 2012

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Foster Friess' Joke for 02/23/2012

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — There is another horripilation on the campaign trail. Someone has told a joke that has roused the virtue police. I am speaking of the virtue police who are working for the grim forces of political correctitude. They do not find the joke very funny. The jokester is a supporter of Rick Santorum, and now he too is on the hot seat for it.

Late last week, his supporter, the ...

Updated: Thu Feb 23, 2012

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It's Time for Newt to Go! for 02/15/2012

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — There is a grisly pallor that has beset former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Then, too, there is a lumpiness — to his face, to his features, to his ... well, to his lump.

When he walks into a room, I feel rather sorry for him, but then I feel rather sorry for Bill Clinton, too, and for Hillary. No longer do I call her "Bill's lovely wife Bruno." S ...

Updated: Wed Feb 15, 2012

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The Delousing of a Movement for 02/09/2012

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — As the tents were coming down at McPherson Square, the dead rats and mice being retrieved, the urine and feces and filthy bedding disposed of by District of Columbia employees dressed in hazardous-materials suits like their contemporaries at Fukushima, I thought of the left-wing press.

You see, I read the left-wing press. Not the urban throwaway rags, but I read The Na ...

Updated: Thu Feb 09, 2012

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Exit Newt for 02/02/2012

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — Ah, yes, Newt Gingrich did in the last days of the Florida primary precisely what I predicted he would do. He hurled wild charges at Mitt Romney that suggested Newt was losing his grip. He charged Romney with lying and falling into the hands of George Soros and Goldman Sachs, and he did this while seeking the Republican presidential nomination!

Newt quoted Sor ...

Updated: Thu Feb 02, 2012

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Newt Gingrich: Our Bill Clinton for 01/26/2012

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — How long have I been saying it? At least for 15 years, but in private, I have been aware of it longer. Newt Gingrich is conservatism's Bill Clinton, but without the charm. He has acquired wit, but he has all the charm of barbed wire.

Newt and Bill are, of course, 1960s-generation narcissists, and they share the same problems: waywardness and deviancy. Newt, like Bill, ...

Updated: Thu Jan 26, 2012

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Obama vs. Christie and the Future for 01/19/2012

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — Whose job would you want to have? Would it be President Barack Obama's or Governor Chris Christie's in the great state of New Jersey? Would it be President Obama's, whose budget woes are getting graver, or would it be Governor Christie's, whose budget is at least looking to be survivable?

Now Obama is facing the choice in his budgetary decisions. Does he raise taxes on ...

Updated: Thu Jan 19, 2012

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Tebow! for 01/12/2012

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — I have officially called off my boycott of the National Football League. I do not care how many felons or frotteurs play the game. Now there is Tim Tebow to redeem it. He can pass and run. He inspires his teammates. He inspires many returning fans like me. I shall follow him through the playoffs and maybe even next year as the season resumes anew. He is an American original & ...

Updated: Thu Jan 12, 2012

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Cat Nip From the Egotists for 01/05/2012

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — An underlying theme of our times that has gone unperceived by the high and mighty in media, government and other locales where the politically alive come to roost is the thumping failure of an increasing number of counter-productive, old progressive reforms. Once they were beheld as prodigies from the minds of superior citizens — such stars of yesteryear as Robert M. La ...

Updated: Thu Jan 05, 2012

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Perry May Still Be the Man to Take on Obama for 12/29/2011

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — The year 2011 has drawn to an end, and as I look back, I see several of my predictions that appear pretty sound. President Barack Obama is dead in the water and will be beaten in 2012. I have made that prediction over and again this year and I think it will be borne out.

Another observation I've made is that liberalism is dead. By the coming election, it will be the ra ...

Updated: Thu Dec 29, 2011

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