James Higgins is a writer who contributed to The Weekly Standard from its founding in 1995 through 2017. His articles for the magazine covered a range of topics including New York politics, fiscal policy, the technology industry, and American history.
IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF AMERICAN CONSERVATISM, young Reaganites imagined there would one day be a sort of apostolic succession from Ronald Reagan to Jack Kemp. When Kemp’s star faded and Bret Schundler was elected mayor of Jersey City—a bright spot for conservatives in 1993, that bleak first year…
AMAZINGLY, in a state that Al Gore carried in 2000 by 1.7 million votes, the gubernatorial race in New York this year long looked to be a walkover for the Republican incumbent. Not only did Gov. George Pataki benefit from public unity following 9/11, but the Democratic party started the year ready…
"The 1980s were not just a decade of greed and self-seeking, they were a decade of denial and blame. George Bush is happy to tell Israel what to do. Why won't he tell Wall Street what to do?"
GENERALS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES at risk of fighting the last war. Indeed, military leaders today may be less prone to this failing than are members of some other professions, since military leaders are aware of experiences like World War I and Vietnam that remind them in a most painful way of the…
NEW YORK CITY LIBERALISM, OR PALEOLIBERALISM to some, is what New Yorkers are told will return to City Hall when term limits force mayor Rudolph Giuliani to depart in 2002. Four Democrats are vying to succeed him. But the potential return of unreconstructed liberalism is not the most menacing…
You arrive at your destination late at night.
ONE COULD BE FORGIVEN for thinking that the journalists covering the opening days of the George W. Bush administration had just walked out of Being There, in which Peter Sellers plays a mentally limited gardener who stumbles from homelessness to a presidential nomination. Phrases like "don't know…
LATE-NIGHT COMEDIANS have done much to persuade Americans that Bill Clinton's finger-wagging "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" denial was the action that captured the essence of his presidency. But it wasn't.
THE FIRST PART of the decision in U.S. v. Microsoft is in. Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson excoriated Microsoft as a bullying monopolist in his findings of fact released November 5. These findings came as a surprise to some, although it is difficult to discern why they should be at all surprising to…
AN UNEXPECTED PLAYER made a last-minute entry into the federal budget debate on November 10: The rating agency Standard & Poor announced that investors" faith in the U.S. government had already "diminished" because of the budget deadlock and that, if the United States were any other country, the…
AN UNEXPECTED PLAYER made a last-minute entry into the federal budget debate on November 10: The rating agency Standard & Poor announced that investors" faith in the U.S. government had already "diminished" because of the budget deadlock and that, if the United States were any other country, the…