46 articles
Forget flag burning. Here's a cutting-edge, freedom-of-expression, First Amendment issue, sure to be litigated soon in a courtroom near you. The Washington Post this week quoted A. Knighton Stanley, pastor of the Peoples Congregational Church, as follows: Urinating in public "speaks to a state of…
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee was among friends the evening of June 5, 1995, when he invited a small group of like-minded conservatives to his office in the Cannon building to talk taxes. One of those in attendance at Rep. Bill Archer's soiree might have been more libertarian…
Ward 3, where I live, is the District of Columbia's largest, taking up practically all of the land west of Rock Creek Park and north of Georgetown. This year, in the "murder capital of the United States," there have been zero murders in Ward 3. The ward is 88 percent white and has no one of working…
This is a country with Big Problems. But it is also a country with Big Tax- Exempt Foundations, and each year they underwrite the task forces and working groups and advisory committees that in turn produce the conferences and studies that tackle the Big Problems -- the same problems, year after…
The Head Start program for the American Establishment, the Rhodes Scholarship and its alumni deserve constant scrutiny. And not just because one of their number is president of the United States, but because 23-year- olds emerge from it with a sense of spiritual entitlement that ought to be beaten…
On February 19, 1993, in Chillicothe, Ohio, President Clinton made a statement on abortion. Leading American politicians, pro-choice or pro- life, rarely edge so close to the heart of the matter.
In his 1925 book The Man Nobody Knows, ad man Bruce Barton repositioned that timeworn product, Jesus of Nazareth. Decrying the "sissifted" paintings of a "pale young man with flabby forearms," Barton depicted a Savior who was strapping and suave, a public relations master and a sagacious executive,…
Colin Powell's memoir is cause for celebration on one point, at least -- its title, An American Journey. Powell resisted the use the word "power" in his title. Can you match the title of the following Washington books and their authors (okay, the guys whose names appear in big type on the book…
Journalists tend to be the heroes of their own stories, but novelists are more scathing about the popular press. After you've finished Evelyn Waugh's peerless Scoop, here are three other memorable novels that savage the fourth estate:
President Clinton had a pretty good summer, politically speaking. But did he overcome one of his worst problems, lack of trustworthiness? That's what we asked pollster Frank Luntz to find out for us last month: Of the last five presidents -- Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton -- who has been…
The political newsletter Hotline recently interviewed the top strategist for the Lamar Alexander presidential campaign, Mike Murphy -- known inside the Beltway as the spin doctor of spin doctors, king of one-liners, one of the best talkers in the business, and a good friend to many on the staff of…
The good news for Senator William Roth (R-Del.) is that his place in history is secure: There's a big entry on him in the most thumbed-through reference book in Washington. The bad news is that it begins as follows: " With his trademark toupee,he does not cut a social figure nor is he dazzlingly…
IN THE SPRING OF 1995, Americans watched in horror as a sobbing 4-year-old was handed over to parents he had never seen. Raised by adoptive parents from the age of four days, the boy pleaded with the only mother and father he knew and promised to "be good" if they would let him stay. But the child…
Jewish newspapers in the 1930s and 1940s featured a column called "Our Film Folk," revealing to the delight of the readership that many of the Hollywood glitterati they loved were, in fact, fellow members of the Hebrew faith. A new version of"Our Film Folk" circulates these days in conversation, if…
In 1985, the Washington Journalism Review published its first "Best in the Business" issue, after soliciting the opinions of readers and experts on the leading purveyors of broadcast and print information.
THE BITTER SQUABBLES LAST WEEK over welfare reform among Senate Republicans suggest the political difficulties of advancing the conservative agenda through that body. But they also suggest that today, the policy debate in America is among conservative ideas -- and virtually among conservative ideas…
JUST LOOK AT REV. AL -- with his processed Mother-Popcorn tresses, that canary yellow shirt sheathing the brick-oven belly, and the neckwear explosion that could pass for a Maryland state flag jammed into a six-button sausage casing. Say this for the new gear, it beats the living hell out of his…
HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH met with Horace Deets, the executive director of the American Association of Retired Persons, last spring to discuss Medicare reform. They got together again over the summer, and then talked about Medicare for an hour in Gingrich's office on September 11. When Deets…
Dinesh D'Souza is sure to generate controversy with his new book, The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society (Free Press, 724 pages, $ 30). His dismissive attack on "liberal antiracism" will drive civil rights advocates and their political sympathizers to apoplexy. It will be denounced…
Here's an unlikely front in the culture war: a land where divorce is unusual, lawns are meticulously tended, and children go to schools that are impervious to drugs, condoms, and multiculturalism. In this homogenous suburbia, nobody cusses and rec rooms abound. Homosexuality is non-existent, incest…
TRAVELGATE -- THE ALL-BUT-FORGOTTEN Clinton White House scandal of May 1993 -- is about to reemerge with a vengeance. In an internal Clinton administration memorandum obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD, a senior Justice Department official accuses the White House of withholding key evidence in a probe…
WHEN YASIR ARAFAT SHOOK HANDS with Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in September 1993, he made two main promises: to include in his public statements that the PLO "encourages and calls upon" Palestinians to take part in "rejecting violence and terrorism"; and to "achieve coexistence" with…
WHEN HARRY S TRUMAN announced in June 1950 that he was committing U.S. forces to defend South Korea without prior Congressional approval, he redefined the role of the president as commander in chief. Without fanfare but with implications potentially as significant, Bill Clinton seems determined to…
My father now has a hobby. It involves stereo equipment, and I won't bore you with all the details because I don't understand them myself, except for the following points: 1) The stuff costs more than you could possibly imagine, and 2) The astonishing sound his so-called "rig" makes as the "St.…
NOt since Mary Matalin's famous fax from Bush campaign headquarters in 1992- "Sniveling, Hypocritica! Democrats," was the demure Miss Matalin's choice of headline -- has a political press release seemed so disproportionate to its subject. It was an attack fax, launched in mid-July, from the…
What explains conservative doubts about the political success of their own limited government principles, as we near the end of the first year of the first Republican, and most conservative, Congress in more than 40 years? We refer here not to House Majority Leader Dick Armey, whose forecast of…
WEDNSDAY, MARCH 8, 1995
When the baseball players strike threatened to scuttle two seasons" wo!th of ball, the whole sordid battle between petulant millionaire infielders and petulant millionaire owners produced only one hero in the public consCiousness -- Peter Angelos, the owner of the BaltimorOrioles, the owner who…
In Iran or Nicaragua, a revolution occurs when a badly shaven leader harangues a street mob into frenzy, leads them through tle streets to sack the palace, guns down the palace guard, writes a new constitution, and invites his supporters to pillage the country's treasury. After a couple of…
"In the United States at this time," wrote Lionel Trilling in 1950, "liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation. . . . " Times change. Forty-five years…
When the KKK took their travelling show to the little Wisconsin town of Elkhorn, the hooded ones got their oxes gored in the process. Seems the county board was all set to offcially denounce the Klansmen by passing a resolution denouncing "hate groups" when an alert citizen decried using the word…
HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH has Medicare, the budget, the debt limit, and the fate of government as we know it in America on his plate this fall. But his thoughts have already wandered to next year. "In January, after consulting with all the presidential candidates and [Republican national…
You buy a brand of ice cream that sends proceeds to benefit the rain forest. You channel your savings into socially responsible investment funds. Your bath products do not rely on animal testing and you rarely go to a " rock concert that isn't sponsored by Amnesty International. Yet every other…
WHEN HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERS met on September 6, giddiness reigned. House members had not been brutalized at town meetings during the August recess, as some had feared, over GOP plans to save $ 270 billion in Medicare spending (and thus balance the budget in seven years). The town meetings held by…
Bob Dole's efforts to appeal to conservatives are gaining momentum, as this schedule of Dole's activities this week, purloined from Dole for President headquarters, proves:
In the Bible, Shem begat Arphaxad, Salah begat Eber, Serug begat Nahor, and Terah begat Abram. On the bestse!ler lists, King begat Koontz, Clancy begat Brown, Wambaugh begat Caunitz, and Scott Turow begat John Grisham. This last is by far the most interesting genealogy.
PERHAPS MOHAMMED SALEH, one of the World Trade Center bombers, put it best in a letter to an appeals court: "There is no need to say, "Who is Kunstler?" He is as a mountain on the ground." Well, now William Kunstler of the scoliotic stoop and caterpillar brow, is in it -- a victim of heart failure…
THE BOMBING CAMPAIGN against Radko Mladic's Bosnian Serb army alone has not solved the Balkan crisis. But NATO air strikes have dramatically altered the situation in the Balkans to the point where a peaceful settlement stands its best chance to take root since the start of the conflict four years…
After 29 years as a patrolman with the Philadelphia police department, Jim McDevitt isn't easily shocked. But he sure seems surprised to learn that Ben Cohen of Ben and Jerry's ice cream is one of the 110 actors, writers, and intellectuals who signed an August ad in the New York Times calling for a…
SUDDENLY, BOB DOLE'S NOMINATION no longer seems inevitable. Having Won less than a quarter of the vote in the Iowa straw poll, he now trails Bill Clinton in national surveys. Focus groups suggest that the age issue is beginning to bite, and the return of a campaign contribution to a group of gay…
What, do you suppose, is it like to work for a presidential campaign that is going absolutely nowhere? A clue could be found on fax machines across Washington on Sept. 6, when the Lugar for President campaign sent out a press release so bizarre that it cries out for comment and explication. It…
Last month, Sports Illustrated" s 3.15 million subscribers were treated to a worshipful ac- count of San Diego Charger Kellen Winslow's politicized induction into the Football Hall of Fame. The great tight end accused Clarence Thomas and Newt Gingrich -- who was in attendance -- of having "tar-…
Kids, the hotly debated film about underage teenagers, casual drugs, and even more casual sex, should be required viewing for the House and Senate conferees who will shortly decide the fate of the National Endowment for the Arts. The movie and the story of its director, Larry Clark, help explain…
When Newt Gingrich innocently proposed to revive orphanages, the media, the Clintohs, and the children's lobby went honkers. A primitive idea, they insisted. Maybe not, said sociologist Charles Murray, when you consider the alternatives. If you died, Murray asked, would you want your surviving…
Now that Cal Ripken has bested Lou Gehrig, the obvious question for the sabremetricians is: Who holds the record for "doing lunch" in Washington? Consensus has it that the late public-relations man Robert Gray set a 2, 1304unch total that may be impossible to beat. Rain or shine, Democratic or…
With the ascension to power of a college professor with a taste for reading lists, the staff of TIE WEEKIX STANDARD will be providing, on occasion, an utterly unscientific reading list of our own favorite books on subjects of interest in the news. First up: