80 articles
The latest enemy of higher education comes from within the ivy walls -- disgruntled graduate students who want to unionize for more pay, better benefits, and empowerment. At Yale University, the Graduate Employee and Student Organization has been at it for nearly six years -- trying to call…
Anyone could see that Barbara Hendricks was not the best choice to sing Le temps des cerises at the Place de la Bastille in tribute to the late president of France, Franqois Mitterrand. The choice was poor not for political reasons, but because the singer was bound to perform in her usual operatic…
When,, the Heritage Foundation released its Index of Economic Freedom," citizens zens of the Czech Republic could be proud that their economy was rated the 12th freest in the world, up with Canada and the Bahamas. But then a few weeks later, the CATO Institute (among others) put out another index,…
HILLARY Rodham Clinton, even if her approval rating is now the lowest ever recorded for a president's wife. The First Lady does have her defenders, and two years ago, a number of them got together and formed an organization called the Back to Business Committee. To hear chairman Lynn Cutler tell…
In the name of The One Above, I offer greetings to my fellow warriors! Today, with His grace, I speak of our great victory over our most evil enemy, America. A little more than 10 years ago experts thought that what became known as the Revolution in Military Affairs would leave developing nations…
The following is the transcript of a secret address delivered by the Holy Leader to the Supreme War Council late in the year 2007: IN THE NAME of The One Above, I offer greetings to my fellow warriors! Today, with His grace, I speak of our great victory over our most evil enemy, America. A little…
THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE'S site on the World Wide Web (http://www. democrats.org) recently invited computer users to take part in a high-tech lynching of Speaker Gingrich.
When liberals seek increased government spending these days, they're less apt to cite the latest Brookings study than to offer up a bit of simple folk wisdom. "It takes a village to raise a child," they'll say, "village" being shorthand for "federal government." The phrase has become a favorite of…
Not so long ago, media criticism was a discipline of the right wing and the right wing alone. For years conservatives scoured the morning papers and studied the evening news, on slomo video playback if necessary, for evidence of liberal bias. The method has yielded an Alexandrian Library of data,…
Travelgate I can forgive. Likewise the futures trading profits and the attempt to nationalize health care. But now Hillary Clinton is insisting that she wrote her book It Takes a Village herself. This outrage violates the social contract.
FRVENT ENDORSEMENT OF A MODIFIED flat tax by Jack Kemp's commission on tax reform was no surprise, but what Kemp said afterwards was. Kemp, known for his ideological boldness but political caution, declared he'll endorse a Republican presidential candidate before the Iowa caucuses on February 12.…
Flying at 500 miles an hour over the snow-dappled hog country of southeastern Iowa, Lamar Alexander calls the time remaining until the Iowa caucuses on February 12 and the New Hampshire primary on February 20 a "forty- yard dash." "I need to be able to make it essentially a two-man race after New…
All you Trollopians out there sure know your stuff. Melanie Kirkpatrick writes of the Jan. 15 Reading List: "Alice Vavasor, not Laura Kennedy, is one of the two ladies with suitable and unsuitable suitors in Can You Forgive Her.?" Lauren Weiner points out that "Laura Kennedy was in Phineas Finn,…
All told, legal gambling in the United States generates roughly $ 40 billion in annual net revenues, from maybe $ 500 billion worth of wagers. It is now the nation's fastest growing "entertainment." American casino attendance almost tripled between 1990 and 1994, to 125 million. And so, no…
LYING LOW HASN'T BEEN EASY for Rep. Barbara-Rose Collins of late -- and not just because of her splashy Motor City fur-feather'n'leather ensembles, which a former staffer says bear resemblance to "a Christmas tree sitting down."
"I was working for the committee that impeached President Nixon, for whom Mr. Satire worked, and best I can tell is still working," Hillary Clinton said of her nemesis William Satire in a recent radio interview. Well, since she brought it up, let us examine what the First Lady and her associates…
WHEN PRESIDENT CLINTON VETOED) welfare form on January 9, he quashed states' opes of receiving block grants and, with them, greater freedom to manage welfare as they saw fit. Nevertheless, confident that block grants will eventually pass, California governor Pete Wilson is pressing ahead with his…
MICHAEL CHERTOFF CHIEF COUNSEL to the Senate Whitewater Committee, can make smart people look stupid. Fade back to the summer of 1995. He is getting his first crack at the Clinton inner circle in the matter of the death of Vincent Foster, deputy White House counsel, two years before. In an intense…
On "Casual Friday," let the dresser beware: Anyone who fails to dress down properly violates the rigid offce code that masquerades as informality. Accidentally wear a tie to work and you'll be treated with all the tolerance accorded conservatives on college campuses.
Here is a story that has captivated hundreds of thousands of Americans: Not long ago, there was a successful businesswoman. She and her husband had " bought into the Bigger is Better and More is Better Yet philosophies of the 1980s." People wanted her all the time. Her appointment book was "the…
QUIETLY AND WITH LITTLE NOTICE from the press, state legislatures have started requiring that women be informed of the cancer risk associated with abortion. As a result, it may soon be common knowledge that having a baby at a young age modestly reduces a woman's lifetime risk of breast cancer,…
President Clinton ended 1995 on a high note. He was up in the polls. Republicans couldn't shake him loose on the budget, and, for once, official Washington was fixated on the ethics probes of Newt Gingrich. Then in the first two weeks of the new year, the president and his wife hit a series of…
An unlikely ally for those who worry that Washington policy wonks make it impossible for ordinary people to understand politics: John Kasich, the chairman of Wonk Central -- i.e., the House budget committee. Kasich fears that the argot he calls "Washington-ese" turns important political battles…
IN THE SPACE OF 10 DAYS AROUND NEW YEAR'S, one Republican presidential candidate was treated to cover stories in insider Washington magazines the $ INew Republic and National Journal as well as a frontpage profile in the New York Times. But the subject wasn't front-runner Bob Dole or insurgent…
It was nice while it lasted. The GOP owned sole bragging rights to credi bility on the balanced budget. It was a hugely popular goal and issue. It was a n apt shorthand slogan for limited-government conservatism. Then, too (don't tell anyone), it was a convient roof under which to shelter and…
Pat Buchanan may have made more news, but it was William J. Bennett who uttered the most noteworthy sentence at the 1992 Republican convention: "Plato understood in the end there is only one political issue: how we raise our children."
I'n Bombay, the most cosmopolitan of Indian cities, one rarely .even sees the road. The streets are covered by a thick carpet of taxis, trucks, and people -- and bereft of lanes or signals. Traffic is a free-for-all resulting in what my teenage brother calls NDEs (for "near death experiences"),…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD is looking for an assistant art director, and since we don't have a classified section, we thought we would mention it here. The job requires proficiency with Macintosh computers, the ability to use a scanner, and familiarity with the design programs QuarkXPress, Photoshop, and…
HANKS TO AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI, I found myself clawing through the muddy Indonesian jungle to catch a glimpse of feeding orangutans. This was a brief diversion, a two-hour detour from the city of Medan, in northern Sumatra. Our group was in the country to meet with Indonesian human-rights advocates.…
with the overwhelming defeat of California's ambitious school-voucher initiative in November 1993, it became clear that progress toward school choice would have to occur incrementally. Middle-class parents who had scraped and saved to move to neighborhoods with good public schools were unwilling to…
During the balanced-budget stalemate, Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole have of ten wistfully said they just wish they could get Bill Clinton alone for a few h ours because they were sure they could wrap up the whole business among themsel ves. The White House doesn't want to let that happen, perhaps…
when a recently released memo placed First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton at the center of the White House Travel Office firings, some called it the smoking gun of Travelgate. Here's the proof, they said: She did it and she lied about it.
Ah, Petruschka, this week the Reading List goes for a dance in the snow. (Remember:
The final report of the Kemp commission -- the tax reform panel appointed by Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole -- was supposed to be unveiled in Washington last week with all three big shots present. But snow stranded Jack Kemp on the ski slopes of Vail, and so the event was held up, maybe until this…
What was once an almost indecipherable set of wrid financial shenanigans involving the tiny elite of a small Southern state is now afull- blown White House story involving, most recent- ly, long-issing billing records suddenly found in a drawer in the First Lady's offices. Those bills completed…
In the run-up to the 1994 elections, Democratic spokesmen frequently warned of the sinister influence of the "Christian right" on the Republican party. But warnings about an impending theocratic tyranny did not make much impression on the voters. Such alarums seem to have been quietly dropped by…
In March 1989, shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini issued his .decree sentencing Salman Rushdie to death for his novel The Satanic Verses, London's Observer newspaper published an anonymous letter from Pakistan. "Salman Rushdie speaks for me," wrote its author, who explained: "Mine is a voice that has…
In her 1991 book Feminism Without Illusions, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese called herself "temperamentally and culturally conservative" but also "a proud feminist." Now, the second half of that paradox has given way. In her new book, "Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life" (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 275…
Noemie Emery's article ("Abortion and the Republican Party: A New Approach," Dec. 25) was politically astute. By substituting moral suasion for political action against abortion, the COP might be able to hold the right-to- life vote while solidifying its grasp on suburban libertarians.
Suppose, just for a laugh, that we wanted to design the worst possible campaign finance system. Suppose we wanted to force politicians to think more about raising money than about legislating. Suppose, to compound things, we also wanted to ensure that the money arrived under circumstances that made…
Cornell University was the setting for one of the most notorious episodes of campus upheaval during the great era of campus upheavals in the late 1960s. Armed students took over the student union building in the spring of 1969, while thousands of other students rallied in their support. Top…
With congressional Republicans always on the lookout for new ways to thwart Bill Clinton, they're mulling over one shocking option: denying him the opportunity to deliver a State of the Union address. The Congress does not have to open its chamber to the president; the Constitution merely requires…
On the morning of November 13, Bill Clinton began the Budget War of 1995 . What he said was not important -- he was vetoing the first continuing resolut ion sent from Capitol Hill for his signature and offering some reasons why What was important was the stagecraft -- speaking to the nation from…
THE DAY TOM DASCHLE WAS ELECTED Senate minority leader in November 1994, he pledged independence from the Clinton administration. He was as good as his word this past December 30, when the House passed a measure that would have sent federal employees back to work. The measure had the tacit support…
It would be impossible to exaggerate how badly Republican budget-balance rs feel they've been vio lated by the White House these past several months. Ev en by Washington standards, administration budget tactics have been astonishing ly crude and deceitful. So you can sympathize with the…
THERE'S AN EMERGING CONSENSUS On the right that religious charities do a better job of helping the poor than does government. Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri has thus proposed to allow states to funnel federal welfare dollars to churches and other overtly religious organizations so they can provide…
Recently, in pursuit of my voyeuristic vocation, I responded to an ad irom Black Rose, a Washington, D.C., social club "for adults involved with dominance and submission in caring relationships." For the beginner's meeting " S&M and Your Family" we packed into a rented storefront church much like…
DESPITE WHAT ENID WALDHOLTZ MAY THINK, life is not the Jenny Jones program. Her five-hour, teary-eyed press conference last month deserves an Emmy for stamina and strength, but in presenting herself as her husband's unwitting victim she failed the most important test of a politician: personal…
Republicans have resolved their own disputes about welfare reform, and a strong measure is ready to be sent to the president. Clinton has announced his intention to veto it, and that fact is causing Bob Dole to hesitate. Should the Republicans force Clinton to veto this presumably popular measure…
For all the agony they've suffered in budget talks at President Clinton's hands, Republicans have knocked down one persistent myth: Clinton as the peerless policy wonk. It turns out that on Medicare and Medicaid and a few other budget issues, Clinton couldn't keep up with House Speaker Newt…
Things continue to break well for the once-improbable presidential candidate Steve Forbes. One private poll shows him at 17 percent in Iowa -- far ahead of Gramm, Buchanan, and Alexander, who are still mired in single digits. What's more, the Forbes campaign has probably succeeded in its effort to…
In 1968, I attended a Black Power rally in Austin, Texas, at which the most popular slogans were "Arm Yourself or Harm Yourself" and the simple but effective "Get Guns." Today the words sound absurd. But remember: That same year, riots broke out in scores of American cities in the wake of the…
George Stephanopoulos, the White House aide, lollygags through budget negotiations with Republican starlets at the Capitol, his feet propped up, acting as if he hasn't a care in the world, political or otherwise. President Clinton conveys a greater sense of urgency, but not much. He blithely took…
Last issue, we began our "Find the Deliberate Error in the Reading List" contest. It was a tough one, but as we expected, at least one of our readers caught it. He is John E Isham of Akron, Ohio, and he writes: "In The Devils,$ N Dostoyevsky parodies Ivan Turgenev, not Ivan Goncharov."…
Can Bill Clinton be defeated? At first, in the wake of 1994, many Republicans assumed it would be easy. More recently, as Clinton has rebounded in the polls, Republicans have become more pessimistic. But, they say, it really doesn't matter that much; the future course of American politics and…
The New York Times "Home" section on January 4 featured a profile by Alex Witchel of Edye Smith. Mrs. tured a profile by Alex Witchel of Edye Smith. Mrs. Smith is the mother of two small boys killed in the Oklahoma City bombing. And she has been, per Witchel, "available to the press" ever since.…
In his columns for Newsweek and the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson challenges, with crystalline clarity, the economic cliches of the day. So it's worth noting that his first book, The Good Life and Its Discontents: The American Dream in the Age of Entitlement 1945-1995 (Time Books, 432 pages, $…
I am no longer hip. The agency of my discovery was a radio station that specializes in "alternative" rock: An abrasive song by some angry grunge band came on during a drive, and I immediately punched to a classical-music station. Only a few years earlier I had been on the rock 'n' roll cutting…
He wanted so much for it all to be true. The Romantics had told him that the world makes no sense in modern times -- the Modernists would later tell him it never had -- but everyone told the German novelist Thomas Mann that the artist is the strong man who hammers out a heroic meaning for this…
An early defining moment of the American experience in Vietnam came on January 11, 1963, when Adm. Harry Felt, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, was conducting an airport press conference following a visit to Saigon. As the American correspondents in general and Malcolm Browne of the…
William J. Bennett What is most impressive about Noemie Emery's article is its moral force. She paints a searingly accurate portrait of what happens to a society when abortion-on-demand is granted constitutional protection and celebrated as a breakthrough for "women's rights." In fact, the…
The most unusual recent explanation for a congressional retirement is surely Bob Walker's. Walker, the 10-term Pennsylvania Republican, put it this way on Dec. 15: "Since the first Continental Congress 220 years ago, the Pennsylvania Dutch seat has established a proud tradition. Part of that…
FAVORITE THEME OF THE MEDIA is that the Catholic hierarchy is out of touch with lay people. It's an easy story. The Vatican objects to birth control; many Catholics use it. Catholics want women priests and a married clergy; Rome stands in the way.
Much ink and anguish have already been devoted to chronicling the shortcomings and deprivations of the variously described collection of troubled souls known as Generation X. This Xer's letter may add little to the outpouring of self-analysis other than further evidence of this generation's…
JIM JEFFORDS OF VERMONT holds the dubious distinction of being the most liberal Republican in a Senate increasingly populated by conservatives. In recent weeks, Jeffords has emerged as the chief Republican obstacle to enacting the party's legislative agenda. In the process, he has acquired…
The week before Christmas, I was shopping for presents in a local bookstore when I heard, behind a bank of books, the rapid, rising whisper of an unmistakably angry woman. I guessed she had just been fired or dumped. It surprised me when I turned the corner and saw a college-age woman, beet-red,…
In a signed New York Times editorial titled "Mr. Angleton and Mr. Ames," Philip Taubman advised, with an air of world-weary wisdom, that the Central Intelligence Agency was brought low by twin destroyers: James J. Angleton and Aldrich Ames. Angleton was the 20-year counterintelligence chief of the…
WHEN LAST WE LEFT JIMMY CARTER . . .
A few months before the 1964 New Hampshire presidential primary, the political columnist Stewart Alsop took to the pages of the Saturday Evening Post to lament that primary's primacy in American presidential politics. New Hampshire, he wrote, is a "small, totally atypical state," consisting "almost…
Felix Rohatyn, the Democratic moneybags who managed the New York City financial bailout in the 1970s, is quietly angling to become chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He'd replace Alan Greenspan, whose Fed term expires in March. Rohatyn isn't openly campaigning for the job. Perish the thought.…
The discussion of children's television in Washington has tended to center around a constitutional question: Does the government have the right to impose content controls on broadcasting? Broadcasters have a ready answer for this. Of course not, they say, any more than government has the right to…
HIS HEALTH IS LESS RELIABLE NOW, and the strain of life -- not just in t he Gulag halfa century ago but also in the struggling Russia of today -- has ta ken its toll. He still walks briskly, but he rests more, and he measures his public appearances with the careful weighing of necessity and risk…
Yes, the Reading List has some "splaining to I do -- for the third week in a row. In the correction of an error about the plot of Evelyn Waugh's $ IBlack Mischief, another was committed: The act of cannibalism alluded to does not occur on the book's final page. "Basil Seal did not ingest his fiance…
In the October 23 Scrapbook, we detailed an epidemic outbreak of familial fetishism. Departed Clintonites Mikva, Paster, Neel, Cutler, and Begala explained they had self-ejected not out of frustration or from being ignored but because they "wanted to spend more time with the family." Now we learn…
IN A SINGLE TV APPEARANCE, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole has destroyed the preferred strategy of some of his campaign advisers for softening the Republican abortion plank. They'd talked about a quiet effort next summer, after Dole has locked up the GOP presidential nomination but before the…
On December 11, a jury in Wenatchee, Washington, acquitted Robert and Connie Roberson of 14 counts of child molestation. Since March, the Robersons had been in custody, charged with raping children on the altar of their church during Sunday services (Roberson is a Pentecostal minister). For those…
Critics of an ideological, partisan American politics especially those who would alter that politics by adding a third major party to the mix -- generally complain as much about the tone of public discourse as about its substance. Washington has become a mean, soul-destroying place, they say. So…
I was paranoid from that moment on," Oliver Stone tells biographer James Riordan. This should be good: What experience could possibly have prompted the onset of so fertile a paranoia?