The Cakewalk War

Six months before the invasion of Iraq, Taki Theodoracopulos, Scott McConnell and this writer launched a new magazine, The American Conservative. Goal: Convince our countrymen that invading Iraq would be imperial folly. In the first column, in mid-September 2002, I wrote: “If ...

Can the Tea Party Deliver?

“There are only two men in America who can fill Yankee Stadium on three weeks’ notice,” a friend instructed me years ago. “Billy Graham and Louis Farrakhan.” Indeed, a decade ago, Black Muslim Minister Farrakhan’s “Million Man March” brought a ...

The Myth of Equality

In 21st century America, institutional racism and sexism remain great twin evils to be eradicated on our long journey to the wonderful world where, at last, all are equal. What are we to make, then, of a profession that rewards workers with fame and fortune, yet discriminates ruthlessly against ...

Only Bigots Oppose the Mosque!

“Where are the Republican leaders who will reject pandering and prejudice?” wailed The Washington Post in its most recent editorial in support of Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero. Like the controversy over the mosque, the Post editorial reveals the two Americas we have become, ...

Our Clueless Professor

Have we ever had a president so disconnected from the heart of America? On Friday night, at a White House iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, Obama strode directly into the blazing controversy over whether a mosque should be built two blocks from Ground Zero. Speaking as though this were ...

The Solomon of San Francisco

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker is truly a visionary. Peering at the 14th Amendment, Walker found something there the authors of the amendment never knew they put there, and even the Warren Court never found there: The states of the Union must recognize same-sex marriages as equal to traditional ...

GOP Blank Check For War?

High among the blunders of history was the “blank cheque” Kaiser Wilhelm gave Vienna, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to deal with the Serbs as they saw fit. Five weeks later, Vienna cashed the check and declared war, after Belgrade refused to submit to all 10 ...

Trusted Most: Men With Guns

Public confidence in Congress has plummeted to the lowest level of any institution since Gallup began asking the question in 1973. One-half of all Americans have little or no confidence in the Congress. Only 11 percent have a “great deal” or “a lot of” confidence in what ...

Bias and Bigotry in Academia

A decade ago, activist Ron Unz conducted a study of the ethnic and religious composition of the student body at Harvard. Blacks and Hispanics, Unz found, were then being admitted to his alma mater in numbers approaching their share of the population. And who were the most underrepresented ...

The War on Arizona

Not since President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock and JFK sent U.S. marshals to the University of Alabama has the federal government seemed so at war with a state of the union. Arkansas and Alabama were defying U.S. court orders to desegregate. But Barack Obama’s war on Arizona is ...