The moment its doors officially open, the new Museum of the Bible, with its prime real estate in the capital, will be the nation’s most prominent institution dedicated to educating the general public about Judeo-Christian ideas and history. But it is far from the first attraction built by…
All politics aspires to the condition of entertainment. At least it does so these days, whether in London or in Washington. The British derive enjoyment from their national dramas, even when things go wrong—Dunkirk was the film of the summer. But that multi-series extravaganza known as Brexit makes…
In a speech on the Senate floor on October 24, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) announced his intention not to seek reelection in 2018. We regret his decision and the state of affairs that led him to make it: Flake is a solid conservative and a decent man, an implacable critic of government waste and a…
Boston
In a speech on October 11 promoting his tax-reform plan, Donald Trump spoke rosily of America’s economic revival, crediting himself for having cleared the way for growth. “Since January of this year, we have slashed job-killing red tape all across our economy,” the president said. “We have stopped…
Boston
In a speech on October 11 promoting his tax-reform plan, Donald Trump spoke rosily of America’s economic revival, crediting himself for having cleared the way for growth. “Since January of this year, we have slashed job-killing red tape all across our economy,” the president said. “We have stopped…
The Republican party is divided into two groups these days. There’s the Trump faction and its rival, the elected leaders, GOP officials, and rank-and-file antagonists of Trump. The split is not ideological. For the most part, the two sides agree on cutting taxes, killing Obamacare, and building up…
If I were a Republican strategist, which I’m pleased to say I’m not, I would pay especial attention to Shelby Steele’s op-ed “Why the Left Can’t Let Go of Racism” in the August 27 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Toward the close of his article, Steele writes that “the great problem for…
If I were a Republican strategist, which I’m pleased to say I’m not, I would pay especial attention to Shelby Steele’s op-ed “Why the Left Can’t Let Go of Racism” in the August 27 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Toward the close of his article, Steele writes that “the great problem for…
Judging by the number of House and Senate seats, governorships, and state legislative seats it holds, the Republican party is stronger than at any point since the 1920s. Yet, going by the presidential nomination battle alone, the party is a mess. There are too many candidates, a few of whom are…
It’s hard to exaggerate how shocking it is that Scott Walker is out of the 2016 race on September 21.
The conservative movement, along with numberless friends of every political coloration, lost a stalwart this weekend when John Von Kannon died, after a long wrestling match with cancer. Most of those friends knew him as “Baron,” though when he was mentioned in the third person, the definitive…
While looking through the newest batch of Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department, one finds a disturbing anti-Israel trend. Her advisers regularly criticized Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the "US. Jewish community," and AIPAC.
While looking through the newest batch of Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department, one finds a disturbing anti-Israel trend. Her advisers regularly criticized Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the "US Jewish community," and AIPAC.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the conservative fantasy of taking over the culture came to pass? What if one major movie studio, and a few popular actors, comedians, writers, directors were conservative?
Milwaukee
When Scott Walker formalizes his presidential run Monday with a long-anticipated announcement, he will have at his side a seasoned veteran of Republican politics and an architect of the modern conservative movement. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that Walker is expected to name Michael Grebe as…
The New York Times is out with a warning: "Homegrown Radicals More Deadly Than Jihadis in U.S.," the headline reads.
Now that the Supreme Court has held its oral arguments in King v. Burwell, the case has somewhat receded from the headlines. But conservatives would be wise to use this period between the oral arguments and the Court’s ruling, expected in late June, to encourage Republicans to unite around a…
The latest episode of Conversations With Bill Kristol, featuring Jeff Bell:
Des Moines
New Jersey governor Chris Christie spoke earlier today at Rep. Steve King's Iowa Freedom Summit in Des Moines. Christie may well have been the 2016 presidential candidate at the confab with the reputation for the most moderate conservative views. But while at first he was greeted with very modest…
Given that nine in ten African-American women voted for Democrats in 2014, it may be no surprise that a focus group of urban, female, African-Americans had mostly contempt for all things “Republican” or “conservative.” But what was shocking is that this group also, unprompted, uniformly opposed…
Even as they publicly condemn Tea Party Republicans as hostage-taking legislative thugs, the truth is that some Democrats are quietly jealous of them. Think of it: The Tea Party gang gets to intimidate party leaders, threaten legislation, block nominees, shut down the government and default on the…
2017 Project executive director Jeffrey Anderson issued a memorandum this morning reporting that the nonpartisan Center for Health & Economy has "scored" the group’s alternative to Obamacare. THE WEEKLY STANDARD readers are familiar with the broad case for the alternative (see here and here), which…
Slowly but surely, the anti-repeal wing of the Republican party is starting to reassert itself. The latest effort comes from Lanhee Chen, who was the top policy advisor on the Mitt Romney campaign. As readers will likely recall, that campaign refused to advance an alternative to Obamacare, failed…
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken her book tour abroad. But in an interview with the BBC, when answering a question about how specialness of the special relationship between the U.S. and UK, the nation's former top diplomat gets the names of the political parties in the UK wrong.
Earlier this year, Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton—now locked in a toss-up Senate race with Democrat Mark Pryor—voted against the farm bill. According to politicos and pundits in Washington, D.C., this is a politically dangerous vote to have cast. This recent article from Politico mentions his farm…
In the New York Times, Jonathan Martin calls David Brat's defeat of House majority leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary "one of the most stunning primary election upsets in congressional history."
Matthew Continetti, writing for the Washington Free Beacon:
Gary Palmer, who is seeking a House seat in Alabama, is a unique candidate. Until this year, he’d never run for political office. Yet he has a long and impressive record in politics. He was a walk-on for Bear Bryant’s University of Alabama football team – whoops, that’s not politics.
The Republican drive to capture the Senate in the 2014 midterm election got a significant boost Tuesday in North Carolina with the victory of house speaker Thom Tillis in the GOP Senate primary. Tillis will face Democratic senator Kay Hagan in the November election.
Mike Lee, perhaps the United States Senate’s leading voice for a conservative reform agenda, has now endorsed Ben Sasse in Nebraska’s Senate race. Lee declared, “Nebraskans need Ben Sasse to represent their values, reformers in the Senate need his conservative vote, our country needs his voice.” …
New York Democratic senator Chuck Schumer, an author of the Senate immigration bill, may have succeeded in helping Republicans kill his own bill.
Reading this provocative and compelling analysis of John F. Kennedy’s political vision, I could not help but think of the reaction Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. had when his colleague John P. Diggins told him he was writing a book favorable to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. “Please,” Schlesinger said,…
What's wrong with Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia's Republican candidate for governor? He's losing by nearly 10 percentage points, according to Real Clear Politics, to Terry McAuliffe, the flawed Democrat. The conventional wisdom is that Cuccinelli is too conservative on social issues, and the McAuliffe…
In Sweden, President Obama complained about the way he's sometimes treated back home in the United States, and suggested he'd be more welcomed in Europe:
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, the five-term Republican from Kentucky, has drawn a primary challenge for his reelection effort next year from businessman Matt Bevin. Bevin, who will likely self-finance part of his campaign, is out with his first ad Wednesday. The 30-second spot purports to…
The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll indicates that the only group of Americans who remain strongly supportive of Obamacare are self-described “liberal Democrats.” Even “moderate or conservative” Democrats have started to jump ship en masse — as they’re now more likely to oppose Obamacare than…
Kenneth Minogue, longtime professor of politics at the London School of Economics, died Friday, age 83. He was a leading conservative political thinker of our time—no, he was a leading political thinker, period, of our time, whose classic, The Liberal Mind, written a half century ago, remains must…
Congressman Jim McDermott, a Democrat, said that the groups targeted by the IRS had it coming since they filed paperwork seeking a special tax status with the federal government:
Mitt Romney, giving his first speech since he lost his election for president of the United States:
The boss, writing in Commentary magazine:
I received an email yesterday from Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, Ill.) that he's given me permission to post, as I thought it would be of interest to our readers. Here it is:
Yuval Levin, writing for National Review Online:
I know a gaffe when I see one, having made many myself, and Romney’s 47 percent remark was no gaffe. It was an expression of a belief so deeply held, and so thoroughly validated in the circles in which Romney travels, that it required no fact-checking. Add to that the tin ear that allowed the…
A reader sends along this picture of a 9/11 memorial set up by the Young Conservatives of Texas at the University of Texas:
Since the 2008 election, American conservatism has been in a struggle to define itself. Now the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate is helping to resolve that struggle.
If there's one thing we've learned after nearly a week on THE WEEKLY STANDARD cruise, it's this: Jimmy Carter was the best thing that could have happened to modern conservatism.
I woke up this morning to about ten emails from journalist friends asking if our mutual friend, Andrew Breitbart, was really dead. “Really” was the operative word. Some meant it in the traditional sense: Is it possible for the human inferno that Breitbart resembled to have actually been…
I suspect many of Andrew Breitbart's friends thinking today about how they’ll remember Andrew will picture him charging through the lobby of a hotel followed by opponents hoping to trip him up, supporters cheering on the confrontation, or journalists taking it all in. Some will recall seeing him…
I'm as shocked as everyone else to hear about the death of Andrew Breitbart this morning. I didn't know Breitbart well, but I knew him well enough to like him a great deal.
Andrew Breitbart died suddenly last night, much, much too young. He was a good and loyal friend, a happy and exuberant warrior, and a talented and dynamic force on behalf of causes he believed in, and the country he loved. May his memory be a blessing.
A brilliant essay by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal on why Santorum might well be electable, on populist conservatism, and on a "clarifying sentence" by Clive Crook with commentary by Mickey Kaus and Jeffrey Bell. Here's a taste—but read the whole thing:
During tonight’s GOP debate, Ron Paul took exception to Rick Santorum’s claim that Paul had finished “in the bottom half of Republicans this year” in ratings published by the American Conservative Union (ACU). Santorum made the comment immediately after having highlighted that the National…
Yuval Levin & Ramesh Ponnuru: "Romney vs. Obamacare"
Frank Miller has a rant about Occupy Wall Street that’s going around this morning. It’s not a real shock—Miller has been on the side of law and order since The Dark Knight Returns and earlier this year he published a graphic novel, Holy Terror, about the clash of Islam and the West. So he’s been a…
One of my favorite Bill Rusher stories is from the 1984 presidential campaign, when he and Jeane Kirkpatrick faced off against Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank on the question of Reagan vs. Mondale. Poor Senator Dodd had to contend with this impossible query from Bill Rusher: “On the invasion of…
If the House were composed solely of independents, it would pass the same conservative legislation as Republicans on Obamacare, the individual mandate, purchasing health insurance across state lines, spending, offshore oil drilling, and Social Security reform.
Ryan Streeter, editor of the very interesting and useful new website, ConservativeHome, had an excellent Q and A with Yuval Levin earlier this week. Read the whole thing here —and then read some of the fine articles in the new issue of National Affairs, which Levin edits, here.
In a short essay, New York Times editorialist Lincoln Caplan considers the increasingly popular conservative rallying cry, "constitutional conservatism." Caplan unsurprisingly tries to characterize the term as purely negative: "The phrase is used mainly in opposition," a response to perceived…
Earlier this month a radio station that made history became history.