R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. from Creators Syndicate

Delusions of Grandeur for 02/21/2008

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — There always has been something delusional about the Clintons' project to make Hillary this country's next commander in chief. Start with the balderdash so frequently exuded through the media that she is, along with her husband, a "rock star." Well, they left the White House like rock stars. They trashed the place.

Yet Hillary, a physically unprepossessing la ...

Updated: Thu Feb 21, 2008

]]>

A Redwood Falls in the Forest for 02/28/2008

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — William F. Buckley Jr., who died Wednesday, appropriately enough in his study, was one of the most stupendous educated Americans of the 20th century. He was among the founders of the American conservative movement that crept out of the New Deal years, advocating market economics, traditional social values, and aggressive resistance to communism. Such ideas were viewed disdain ...

Updated: Thu Feb 28, 2008

]]>

McCain Again for 03/06/2008

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — In the aftermath of Sen. John McCain's capture of the Republican nomination, allow me to offer a quiz. When McCain was being dismissed in the media last summer as a has-been, who laid down the following observation in his/her syndicated column: "Call me a contrarian if you will, but the gloomy media mood shrouding the McCain candidacy is a reflection of the lack of serio ...

Updated: Thu Mar 06, 2008

]]>

The Democrats' Problem With Race for 03/13/2008

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON, D.C. — I, for one, shall not join the raucous mob in pursuing this unfortunate man, Eliot SpRitzer. In the 1990s, I spent quite enough time guffawing over the libidinous giddiness of a well-known elected official, and all it got me was an utterly unwarranted reputation for being puritanical and discourteous to the late 20th century's living embodiment of Abraham Lincoln. So I ...

Updated: Thu Mar 13, 2008

]]>

A Palestinian Poll for 03/20/2008

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — On the evening of March 6 in Jerusalem, a heavily armed Palestinian terrorist from nearby east Jerusalem entered the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and opened fire on the unarmed teenage students studying there. Eight died, and 11 were badly wounded before another student and an off-duty soldier shot the terrorist. The atrocity ignited wild celebrations in Gaza.

If you thought t ...

Updated: Thu Mar 20, 2008

]]>

Hillary's Latest Whoppers for 03/27/2008

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — As the Clintons enter their 17th year at the center of the national stage, some Washington pundits are running out of patience with them. My condition is more desperate. I am running out of jokes about these two perennial college kids. History eventually will remember them as the reincarnation of Warren and Florence Harding. For now, they come off as two undergraduate BSers o ...

Updated: Thu Mar 27, 2008

]]>

Invincible Ignorance for 04/03/2008

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Regarding the present economic apprehensions, may I counsel calm and good sense. As for those agitated voices in the chorus, ululating of our dire straits and even of depression and doom, remember they have been out there for years. Generally speaking, they are opportunistic liberals itching for power. It is not surprising that their lamentations are so frequent but that they ...

Updated: Thu Apr 03, 2008

]]>

Crab-Antics Conservatives for 04/10/2008

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The other day, I was beholding Fox News' beauteous Martha MacCallum on her TV salon, "The Live Desk," when a smudge darkened my otherwise sunny afternoon.

Linda Chavez, that perennial conservative talking head, was being interviewed about American politics, when, all of a sudden, she did something quite jarring. She referred to conservative activist Grover No ...

Updated: Thu Apr 10, 2008

]]>

Jimmy Carter Amok for 04/17/2008

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — In the 1980 presidential election, the American people did the best they could with President Jimmy Carter, given the limitations imposed on them by our Constitution: They retired him from office (44 states participated in the ceremony). Looking back, however, on how the scamp has abused his retirement, I, for one, wish we could have done better. Perhaps he could have been pu ...

Updated: Thu Apr 17, 2008

]]>

Obama and the Weird for 04/24/2008

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Anyone who has followed politics studiously over the years is aware that there are gifted politicians who, for whatever reason, eventually find their campaigns haunted. I do not mean haunted by accidental events or by a clod or two at campaign headquarters. I mean haunted . I mean visited by the weird, by supernatural pranksters, by what our Islamic friends call jin ...

Updated: Thu Apr 24, 2008

]]>

Of Barack Obama and Al Smith for 05/01/2008

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The heavy seas that the Obama campaign is now encountering should trouble us all. It is utterly appropriate for a one-term United States senator to be questioned about the extent of his experience or about his grasp of policy. It is, however, profoundly troubling that all these years after the triumph of the civil rights movement and after the integration of millions of black ...

Updated: Thu May 01, 2008

]]>

The Mayor of London Who Would Be President for 05/08/2008

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The most momentous political story of the hour is not what you might think … whatever you might think. It has to do with an American politician now living in London and his aspiration to become president of the United States. His name is Boris Johnson. He, an exemplary conservative, has just beaten one of the most rebarbative left-wing reactionaries in the United Kingd ...

Updated: Thu May 08, 2008

]]>

Campaigning on Ignorance for 05/15/2008

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Readers of this column will recall that from time to time in covering an election cycle, I have referred to a voting bloc that political analysts of more delicate sensibilities would rather not mention, to wit, the moron vote. It is a constituency composed of politically ignorant citizens who nonetheless feel very intensely about political issues once their respective demagog ...

Updated: Thu May 15, 2008

]]>

'Appeasement' as a Hate Term for 05/22/2008

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Poor Neville Chamberlain. The long-deceased British prime minister — remembered through the decades for his policy of appeasement and for the war with Hitler that it hastened — now suffers yet another disgrace. The mere mention of "appeasement" apparently sets off paranoid tantrums amongst members of the political class. Once deemed a very enlightened to ...

Updated: Thu May 22, 2008

]]>

Meet the Gaffable Barack Obama for 05/29/2008

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — As I noted several weeks back, some very bizarre happenings began to haunt the Obama campaign in April. The candidate — taking his breakfast in a Scranton, Pa., eatery — was asked by a reporter for his reaction to a meeting former President Jimmy Carter had just concluded with a thug from Hamas. Clearly annoyed, Sen. Barack Obama refused to answer the question. In ...

Updated: Thu May 29, 2008

]]>

Bill Clinton Aroused for 06/05/2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The other day, an aroused Bill Clinton addressed a female reporter in South Dakota, shouting a word into her face that the "Dictionary of American Slang" labels "Taboo." As the reporter recorded it, Boy Clinton was "tightly gripping" her hand and "refusing to let it go." What had aroused him was a story in Vanity Fair that chronicles th ...

Updated: Thu Jun 05, 2008

]]>

McCain's Achievement for 06/12/2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Think of it! Since early 2007, ambitious politicians have cluttered up the news with their campaigns for the presidency. Giants, such as Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, have tantalized us with the possibility that America could, under their leadership, become the new Athens. Finally, three months ago, the field was reduced to three candidates, and now it is do ...

Updated: Thu Jun 12, 2008

]]>

Bush Over Truman for 06/19/2008

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The stature and repute of our public figures are shaped, as I have written before, by this thing called Kultursmog . It is our political culture, a kultur utterly polluted by politics, left-liberal politics. For instance, it renders the Clintons, as reporter John F. Harris hymned in a recent hagiography, "the two most important political figures of t ...

Updated: Thu Jun 19, 2008

]]>

Tracing the Roots of Environmentalism for 06/26/2008

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

SARLAT, France — I have journeyed to the south of France to continue my research into the earliest ancestors of America's present-day political exotics. The American scene abounds with bizarre creatures: feminists, militant advocates of identity politics, environmentalist wackos (as Rush Limbaugh's millions call them). I came here to investigate the life of the 12th-century troubadour Ber ...

Updated: Thu Jun 26, 2008

]]>

Clinton and I at Georgetown for 07/03/2008

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

LONDON — I am in London preparing a couple of talks on politics that I am to give this week, and I have made a very unhappy discovery. A new book, written by a promising young American historian, reveals a secret about Bill Clinton and me that we have kept from the public for four decades. In "The Pact," a book that follows the strikingly similar careers of Bill Clinton and Newt ...

Updated: Thu Jul 03, 2008

]]>