Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon

Nixon’s Yoda

In a recent New York Times book review, Henry Kissinger says that according to Dean Acheson, “leaving high office is like the end of a great love affair—a void left by the disappearance of heightened sensibilities and focused concerns.” Dr. K. should know. He is famous for saying that ...

Keith Richards

My Wild Week and Wunderbar Weekend

NEW YORK—I had a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious week—so good, it took a weekend in Connecticut to recover from it. Let’s begin with the Norman Mailer benefit gala. The Mailer Center is an extraordinary achievement only four years following the great man’s death. Larry Schiller, the ...

Once Upon a Time on the Riviera

A recent libel case won by Lady Moore, wife of Sir Roger Moore of James Bond fame, called for my testimony in London, and for once I was happy to oblige. Roger Moore is a friend of very long standing, as is his son Geoffrey, who lives fifty yards away from me in Gstaad. British hacks are notorious ...

Jean-Claude Trichet

Nothing Left to Steal

NEW YORK—God, it’s great to be Greek right now. We’ve out-front-paged the Holocaust as well as Iran’s “existential threat” to Israel. (The latter has been jerked up a notch, with Big Bagel papers presenting the Iran “problem” as if it’s 1939 and the Nazis have the bomb.) When the ...

Bernie and Ruth Madoff

The Disgusting Ones

NEW YORK—According to Virgil, Libyans are “a people rude in peace and rough in war.” The old boy wrote this a couple thousand years ago, so we have to give him some slack. He was obviously not speaking about the present rabble. As far as I’m concerned, most Libyans are human biohazards. The ...

Tweet Away, Ye Morons

FORT WORTH, TEXAS—To the best state in the Union for the annual John Randolph Club meeting of true conservatives, hip, hip. No posturing peacocks spouting gibberish learned at university diversity courses here, but witty, juicy, intelligent criticisms of today’s cultural sewer and the part ...

The Spectator’s Simple Genius

The London Spectator is the oldest weekly magazine of the English-speaking world, a jewel of a magazine as distinguished and respected as it is elegantly written. It was first published in 1828, just as modern Greece became a nation, and in a recent speech the sainted editor remarked that the ...

Mr. Zuccotti’s Zoo

NEW YORK—The morning routine is now a pleasure. Up early, stretch and bend the creaky limbs, hit the coffee, then off to judo and karate. Last week I only managed to get drunk twice, hence there were five such mornings. And what mornings they were. Stolen from summer without the oppressive heat, ...

Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver

Remembrance of Black American Fugitives Past

Hearing about the black American fugitive who was caught recently after 40 years on the lam brought back lots of memories. No, I’m not black and I’ve never been a fugitive from justice, but the memories are quite pleasant because I met all those Black Liberation Army conmen in Algeria just ...

Warren Buffett

My Beef With Buffett

NEW YORK—Here is the $64-million question: Is there a moral case against soaking the rich? I can’t think of a better place to ponder such an issue than right here in the womb of capitalism, the Big Bagel, taking into account that within the narrow corridor that is Manhattan Island some of the ...