On Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler’s panzers smashed into Poland. Two days later, an anguished Neville Chamberlain declared war, the most awful war in all of history. Was the war inevitable? No. No war is inevitable until it has begun. Was it a necessary war? Hearken to Churchill: “One day, ...
For the financial crisis that has wiped out trillions in wealth, many have felt the lash of public outrage. Fannie and Freddie. The idiot-bankers. The AIG bonus babies. The Bush Republicans and Barney Frank Democrats who bullied banks into making mortgages to minorities who could not afford the ...
By inviting Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Notre Dame, the Rev. John Jenkins has polarized the Catholic community nationwide—and raised a question. What does it mean to be a Catholic university in post-Christian America? Are there truths ...
“In 1877, Lord Salisbury, commenting on Great Britain’s policy on the Eastern Question, noted that ‘the commonest error in politics is sticking to the carcass of dead policies.’ “Salisbury was bemoaning the fact that many influential members of the British ruling ...
“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency,” said Lord Keynes. Ben Bernanke disagrees. A student of the Depression, the Fed chair appears far more fearful of deflation—a vicious cycle of falling prices, debt defaults, home foreclosures and rising ...
As the U.S. financial crisis broadens and deepens, wiping out the wealth and savings of tens of millions, destroying hopes and dreams, it is hard not to see in all of this history’s verdict upon this generation. We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. For how did this ...
During Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972, his interpreter and I, free for a few hours, conscripted a driver to take us on a tour of Beijing. Somewhere in my files are photos from that day we toured the grim city of Chairman Mao in the time of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. ...
By the choices we make we define ourselves. We reveal our biases and beliefs. And so, too, do our institutions. In writing the $789 billion stimulus bill, Congress revealed that, for all its “Buy American” blather, it does not truly put America first. It does not believe that 10 ...
It was the winter of conservative discontent. Barry Goldwater had gotten only 38 percent of the vote, and his party had suffered its worst thrashing since Alf Landon fell to FDR in 1936. Democrats held 295 House seats, Republicans 140. They held 68 Senate seats to Republicans’ 32, and 33 ...
Heeding the advice of Gen. David Petraeus, Barack Obama has committed 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan and will keep 50,000 in Iraq after U.S. combat operations end in August 2010. But are U.S. vital interests more threatened by what happens in Anbar or Helmand than in the war raging along our ...
