Whenever I need to check out of the world, I head to a place called Satan's Creek. I go there to catch-and-release—or maybe catch-and-ogle—God's most perfect creatures: wild brook trout. They come small in these mountain runs. An 11-incher would be considered trophy-size. Still, bringing one to…
It’s sad that following the massacre of their classmates, the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida should immediately turn to government for action instead of to their own communities. The obvious question suggested by these crimes is: What’s wrong with us? Do I know…
The poisoning of Russian defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with one of the deadly Novichok series of nerve agents has plunged relations between Britain and Russia to their lowest level since Soviet times, sparking tit-for-tat diplomatic moves and a war of words. The crisis has raised…
If our scribblings here at The Weekly Standard have, for the last two years, had a jittery, anxious quality, it might be because we haven’t had a minute’s calm. And I don’t mean the mad whirlwind that is the Age of Trump. I refer to the daily slam-bang from the construction site next door.
It's been a while since we talked; have you caught up yet? The second season of Jessica Jones was bonkers; did you manage to make it through The Punisher and The Defenders? What about the new season of Black Mirror—that one episode where they warned against the dangers of technology outpacing our…
New from the publishing industry: Crimson Romance, Simon & Schuster’s “diverse romance” imprint, recently announced on Twitter that it will close. The Book Riot blog reports: “The Ripped Bodice, a Los Angeles romance bookstore whose owners recently published a report on the state of diversity in…
If someone invented a television “raver filter” there would no doubt be national jubilation—until we realized that blocking the ravers would leave very little to watch. Everyone raves these days: sports announcers, politicians, airline executives, celebrities, cartoon characters, weather…
Being a writer-editor-pundit in Donald Trump’s Washington is a 24/7 job. In the last year, I’ve had countless nights of missed dinners and lost sleep, along with a few canceled concerts and ruined respites. But there was one mission from which not even a Trump tweet starting a nuclear war could…
The so-called “Trump dossier” continues to be the most important—and contested—document in the many probes of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Since its publication by BuzzFeed on January 10, 2017—bearing the remarkable disclaimer that “the allegations are unverified, and the…
"I don’t agree with him on that one," my stepmother said. “It was wrong, and I don’t think he should have done it.” Usually she took my father’s side in these discussions. Not this time.
For anyone counting #MeToo casualties with a wary eye, one of 2018’s first will have stood out. On January 13, in a lengthy exposé published on a website for college-age women, a 23-year-old photographer charged comic Aziz Ansari with the crime of being a bad date. The pseudonymous “Grace”…
Tomorrow some people from Catholic Charities are coming to tow away the beautiful BMW 740iL that my father bought in Germany at the turn of the century. Like the vast majority of American males he was until then a car enthusiast who had never owned a nice car. He didn’t suffer from that—fancy…
At the height of his influence in the 1960s and ’70s, Billy Graham was a man about whom nearly every adult in America had an opinion. He was everywhere—his weeklong evangelistic “crusades” packed stadiums around the globe; innumerable books and articles carried his byline; his face appeared on the…
To someone watching snowboarding for the first time, it might look like a mix of skiing, surfing, and skateboarding. Some competitive snowboarding events are races and feature obstacles or emphasize speed; others award higher scores for better tricks. They are fairly recent additions to the Winter…
Nikolas Cruz delighted in torturing animals. The Florida school shooter is reported to have killed frogs and squirrels, and sicced a dog on a neighbor’s piglets. Cruz’s social media feeds were replete with images of dead and maimed critters, apparently hurt by his own hand.
On January 19, the Pentagon released its new National Defense Strategy. The second paragraph of the 14-page declassified summary painted a dire picture. “Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive military advantage has been eroding,” the Defense…
Paul Ryan, of all people, was in a defensive posture about his commitment to fiscal discipline. Speaking on February 13 to Maria Bartiromo of the Fox Business Network, the speaker of the House insisted that the two-year budget deal Republicans in Congress had just brokered was a necessary…
Speaking in Japan a couple of days before the Pyeongchang Olympics began, Vice President Mike Pence delivered a welcome message: “We will not allow North Korean propaganda to hijack the message and imagery of the Olympic Games,” he said. Unfortunately, Pence was not doing double duty as an…
Roger Federer has a wonderful serve and all the strokes. He’s the right height, 6-foot-1, and the right weight, 187 pounds. He’s fast and light on his feet. On the court, he no longer has a weakness, now that he slugs one-handed backhands rather than slicing most of them. There’s one more essential…
One year and a day after Betsy DeVos was confirmed as secretary of education, she sat in her seventh-floor office, a vast and soulless space in one of the unloveliest buildings in Washington, and reflected upon the process that brought her there.
When the House Intelligence Committee released its memo arguing that the FBI and Department of Justice had abused the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by using political opposition research as a basis for repeated surveillance requests, James Comey expressed perfectly the inconsistent…
Will exposed creep Louis C.K. try to make art that honestly confronts what he did—or will he go the way of Woody Allen?
Person A isn’t completely persuaded that human activity is the greatest contributor to climate change. Person B believes men can give birth. In 2018, guess which person is more likely to be decried as “anti-science.”
In a nuclear world, nuclear weapons are needed to deter major attacks, but who should possess these instruments of deterrence? The United States has long been committed to stemming nuclear proliferation by both potential adversaries and friends. Today the challenge of keeping nonnuclear states from…
The story of The President and the Porn Actress (our era’s The Prince and the Showgirl) isn’t going away. The tale of pseudonyms and secret payments made through here-today-gone-tomorrow Delaware corporations has proved to be far juicier than anything so tired as an allegation that Donald Trump was…
The Centers for Disease Control alarmed the public in early January when it announced that the topic of its next monthly public health briefing would be preparing for nuclear war. But the agency soon changed the subject to something it deemed more urgent: this season’s flu outbreak.
The Trump administration did not condemn Turkey last week after the country’s military began attacking Kurdish forces in northwestern Syria. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders exemplified the administration’s response: “We hear and take seriously Turkey’s legitimate security…
Five nights a week, Sunday through Thursday, from 1973 to 2012, Milton Rosenberg elevated AM radio and the cultural tone generally in Chicago. Milt Rosenberg died on January 9 at the age of 92. His two-hour talk show was nothing if not anomalous. A University of Chicago professor, his academic…
In nine days in early December, eight young people died of overdoses in Fairfax County, Va., the second-richest of the 3,007 counties in the United States. Mass events like these happen frequently and in all sorts of places. A half-dozen people died in the small Rhode Island town of Burrillville in…
During the 2016 presidential election, the New York Times alleged that the Trump campaign had offered to make John Kasich “the most powerful vice president in history,” through a novel division of duties: The vice president “would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.” The president,…
Like any dutiful Washington swamp creature, I’ve spent the last few days holed up with Fire and Fury. Which is not, if you’ve been in news-cycle hibernation, the new fragrance from Ivanka. Rather, it is a book by Michael Wolff about life inside Mar-a-Lago North, aka the Trump White House.
'My neighbors probably think I’m nuts,” says Cory Gardner. The fresh-faced senator is from tiny Yuma in northeastern Colorado, a 3,500-person town with “horrible cell service” to the point where he doesn’t get reception inside his house. So when the secretary of state calls, Gardner does what the…
The most potent form of nostalgia is for a time you never knew in a place you do and imagine was at its peak before you came along. For me, that would be the 1950s in New York City, set to the cool, light strain of the Dave Brubeck Quartet playing Paul Desmond’s “Take Five.” I can never get enough…
In the sundry debates about the Western canon that periodically vex our culture, attention is always focused on those who have been excluded from it, with the implicit assumption that some malign force is behind that omission. Far less discussed but no less important is the question of who has…
Paris
It is odd to hear Westerners, hopelessly permeated with Marxism, dissect the nationwide Iranian protests as primarily an economic eruption, the suggestion being that the demonstrators are not that dyspeptic about the nature of the Islamic Republic. The New York Times’s Thomas Erdbrink, the Dutch…
Shocked by Donald Trump’s election, Democrats adopted a strategy of resistance that’s simple and blunt: Anything Trump is for, they’re against. It’s turned out to be one of the least successful strategies a political party has ever pursued. Yet Democrats have stuck to it.
The other day a friend told me that my name came up at the funeral of someone I didn’t remotely know. I told her, this friend, that I assumed that the person who brought it up was doubtless the minister, priest, or rabbi officiating at the funeral. She said it was the minister. I added that I knew…
Back in the 1990s, when I was a student at Cambridge, I met Queen Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret. A party had been arranged in her honor by the historian J. H. Plumb. There was jazz and dancing; the champagne flowed. Her Royal Highness drifted around, making excruciatingly banal conversation…
If you’re ever looking for a hearty chuckle, the Nation never fails to deliver. It fashions itself as a “progressive” magazine—if your notion of progress is reviving Marxist nostrums of yesteryear.
In the wake of Democrat Doug Jones’s surprise win over Republican Roy Moore in the Alabama special election to replace Jeff Sessions in the Senate, pundits and prognosticators were scrambling to make sense of the new political landscape. The verdict was almost all bad for the Republican party.
Every Sunday evening, the press office at the Environmental Protection Agency receives emails from the New York Times and Politico asking for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s public schedule for the coming week. The press office ignores the emails.
A beautiful simplicity seems to unfold when Ronnie O’Sullivan constructs a century break, potting 100 points’ worth of balls on a single visit to a snooker table. No one ever described snooker as an easy game, but when O’Sullivan begins to flow, he makes each moment look natural. Obvious, almost.…
President Trump on December 6 ended all hope of Middle East peace, recklessly encouraged terrorism, and ruined U.S. relations with all Arab countries.
There's a song I’ve started to play on the piano. It’s called “Money,” a fairly straightforward arrangement by Burt Bacharach. The only problem is Liza Minnelli’s eyes. They keep staring back at me from the opposite page.
Some historians talk about a “reading revolution” in the middle of the 18th century, during which literacy rates rose and people came increasingly to prefer reading silently over reading aloud—mainly novels, a relatively new literary form. In The Social Life of Books, Abigail Williams, a professor…
It was Big Trash Day in my neighborhood. Notices had gone out that the city’s garbage trucks would pick up practically anything you put on the curb. Busted televisions, cracked porcelain toilets, cheap plastic outdoor furniture, and all your abandoned aspirations too—piles of books you never read…
In 1991, George Weigel arrived in Prague to research The Final Revolution, a book that told the story of Pope John Paul II’s influence on the collapse of communism. That book would show that Weigel understood John Paul from the inside, as the pope thought he needed to be understood, and would pave…
A notice came last week from a newspaper I subscribe to. Since “offering check payments is becoming increasingly difficult to support,” the paper is “looking to move all our readers to digital payment methods.” The letter was bossy and presumptuous but the upshot was clear. There’s no longer anyone…
In The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976) Daniel Bell argued that modern capitalism abetted two conflicting tendencies: It encouraged hedonistic self-gratification in the cultural sphere while needing sober hard-working adults in the economic sphere. A defect in the thesis is that there…
When I got back from India in April 1969, I knew instantly everything had changed. A ’60s commando with a backpack, I could feel it even before I got out of Kennedy Airport: an aura of resentment, a light smog of paranoia, a lurch in the American vibe I’d left the year before when everything seemed…
There are many ways to judge a president—polls, approval ratings, legislative successes, foreign breakthroughs, memorable speeches, and historic moments. But there’s a better way than any of these, and Fred Greenstein, a professor of politics emeritus at Princeton University, has developed it.
Asked about allegations Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore dated and engaged in appropriate conduct with teenage girls several decades ago, Alabama state senator Dick Brewbaker commented, “I do not buy the idea that suddenly because it’s now the U.S. Senate, she felt like she had to come…
Midway through the remarkable new documentary Jane comes a scene that could stand for its whole improbable story. Twenty-something Jane Goodall, not yet a credentialed scientist but doing the work of several, sits with a telescope on the floor of an African forest watching chimpanzees in a tree,…
To those feverishly speculating, whether in glee or in terror, that the election results in Virginia and New Jersey portend loss of GOP control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections a year from now, I ask this question: What difference does that prospect make not as of January 2019…
I used to despise the relative obscurity of my alma mater, Reed College. The name of the Portland, Oregon, liberal arts school has spurred more than a few quizzical looks in Washington when I’ve mentioned it. “Reed? Where’s that?” This has been a persistent source of chagrin and insecurity about my…
There have been very few Renaissance men since the Renaissance—and they weren’t exactly thick on the ground even in their glory days. No modern figure is more worthy of that appellation than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who was not only the greatest German poet, playwright,…
Detroit
Detroit
I recently saw a sportswriter on social media paying tribute to a deceased editor he’d had the pleasure of working with. “The best editors are a psychologist, a friend, an idea person, a life vest,” he wrote. “Every story written is a trust fall into an editor’s arms.” I don’t doubt this sentiment…
On the penultimate day of the Obama administration, less than 24 hours before the president would vacate the White House, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a press release meant to put to rest what had been a pesky issue for his office. “Closing the Book on Bin Laden:…
When Steve Bannon became CEO of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, Trump was far behind Hillary Clinton, according to Bannon. “We were 16 points down,” he said.
Just when it seemed as if the election of Donald Trump had rendered his supporters incoherent with triumphalism and his detractors incoherent with rage—thereby dumbing-down political conversation for a long time to come—something different and more interesting happened. A genuine debate has sprung…
As I drove across the prairie, I saw the corn fields, tall and ripe. I saw the fabled waves of grain, the endless tides of amber wheat. I saw the plains unfold, down miles and miles of blacktop road. Returning to the landscape of my childhood, I leaned my head out the car window to breathe the…
When Steve Bannon became CEO of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, Trump was far behind Hillary Clinton, according to Bannon. “We were 16 points down,” he said.
Just when it seemed as if the election of Donald Trump had rendered his supporters incoherent with triumphalism and his detractors incoherent with rage—thereby dumbing-down political conversation for a long time to come—something different and more interesting happened. A genuine debate has sprung…
My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine.
The attic where I write is stifling for half of the Washington, D.C., year. But in the autumn, breezes gust through the open windows and so do the sounds of our neighborhood—children chatting on their way to school, a barking dog, the squeak of the mailbox across the street being opened, and the…
Abingdon, Va.
The attic where I write is stifling for half of the Washington, D.C., year. But in the autumn, breezes gust through the open windows and so do the sounds of our neighborhood—children chatting on their way to school, a barking dog, the squeak of the mailbox across the street being opened, and the…
Abingdon, Va.
My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine.
By the time you read this, it is entirely possible that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will have resigned his office in despair and frustration. He finds himself, after all, at “the breaking point” (New Yorker) in relations with his mercurial boss, President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, over at PBS…
Samuel Johnson, about to tuck into a pork roast, is supposed to have said that the only thing that would make the food before him better is if he were a Jew. Stendhal, I years ago heard, said that the only thing wrong with ice cream was that it wasn’t illegal. The question both these men raise is…
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…
With police intensifying their long-running corruption probes, Israel is awash with speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister may be numbered. Opponents—both within the Likud party and without—have been organizing. Sensing the danger, Netanyahu and his allies have fought back,…
I was recently in San Francisco on business. I was there on business because, well, I would never go there for pleasure.
When George Will was being packed off to graduate school, his father, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, asked him what, or who, he wanted to be in life: Ted Sorensen, Isaiah Berlin, or Murray Kempton? All three men were closely identified with a public trade. Sorensen, as…
With police intensifying their long-running corruption probes, Israel is awash with speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister may be numbered. Opponents—both within the Likud party and without—have been organizing. Sensing the danger, Netanyahu and his allies have fought back,…
I was recently in San Francisco on business. I was there on business because, well, I would never go there for pleasure.
When George Will was being packed off to graduate school, his father, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, asked him what, or who, he wanted to be in life: Ted Sorensen, Isaiah Berlin, or Murray Kempton? All three men were closely identified with a public trade. Sorensen, as…
A few years ago, some friends of mine, weekend musicians, started jamming together and formed a cover band called the Porch Lights. To be honest, their big world tour is a bit slow in developing. Conquering the globe one backyard at a time, they haven’t quite made it outside of our neighborhood,…
The victory of Roy Moore, a populist and religious fundamentalist, in the Alabama Senate primary last week can be seen in two different ways: continuity with the recent past of GOP politics and a radical break from it.
A few years ago, some friends of mine, weekend musicians, started jamming together and formed a cover band called the Porch Lights. To be honest, their big world tour is a bit slow in developing. Conquering the globe one backyard at a time, they haven’t quite made it outside of our neighborhood,…
The victory of Roy Moore, a populist and religious fundamentalist, in the Alabama Senate primary last week can be seen in two different ways: continuity with the recent past of GOP politics and a radical break from it.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) painted watercolors throughout his European childhood. Like his family, the dependents of the peripatetic Dr. Fitzwilliam Sargent, watercolors were portable and picturesque. Sargent continued to paint watercolors in the 1870s as a student in Paris and in the 1880s…
When my grandparents—proud, independent, Greatest Generation types—consented to move into a retirement community, they offered to give one of their cars to us grandkids. They didn’t need and couldn’t keep two cars, and they offered this vehicle free of charge. It was a lavish gesture, especially…
At the United Nations, President Trump warned North Korea that its jefe “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.” If need be, Trump said, the United States would “totally destroy North Korea.” For its part, North Korea has said it would deliver “the greatest pain and…
What happened to Hillary Clinton en route to her appointment with destiny? Her new book, What Happened, portrays her as a lifelong fighter on behalf of noble causes, a woman whose quest for the power she deserved was thwarted by a cabal as vast as the one she once said had been after her husband…
Long before I ever even picked up a golf club, I wanted to be the kind of person who golfed regularly. A Real Golfer, in other words. Even as a child, I loved the manicured, tightly controlled aesthetic of golf courses—just the right (which is to say, minimal) amount of “nature” for my…
Josh Cobin seems a good enough guy. A little pudgy, maybe, with his hair thinning on top and a beard borrowed from a Civil War officer—one who forgot to get a trim before Mathew Brady showed up to take the battalion photograph. At 29, Josh is probably a little old for the sloppy look he affects. A…
Long before I ever even picked up a golf club, I wanted to be the kind of person who golfed regularly. A Real Golfer, in other words. Even as a child, I loved the manicured, tightly controlled aesthetic of golf courses—just the right (which is to say, minimal) amount of “nature” for my…
Stephen King’s It was the bestselling book of 1986 and the source material for an enormously successful two-part miniseries on ABC in 1990 that has been shown regularly on cable TV ever since. The ridiculously overlong novel reads like King is parodying himself; the miniseries is obvious and…
Josh Cobin seems a good enough guy. A little pudgy, maybe, with his hair thinning on top and a beard borrowed from a Civil War officer—one who forgot to get a trim before Mathew Brady showed up to take the battalion photograph. At 29, Josh is probably a little old for the sloppy look he affects. A…
On August 30, New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter terminated the left-leaning think tank’s relationship with scholar Barry C. Lynn and his Open Markets program. Slaughter says that Lynn was not abiding by New America’s “standards of openness and institutional collegiality.” He says he was…
Kurt Andersen may be right in supposing that what looks like Americans’ increasing inability to distinguish fantasy from reality is the big topic of our times, and there are at least 2 or 3 of his 46 chapters in Fantasyland in which he does justice to his subject. His rapid tour d’ horizon on New…
Last month the Village Voice announced it was ending its print edition, a 62-year run of muckraking reporting, cultural criticism, opinion, advocacy, and opposition—opposition to authority, to anything, sometimes to everything. Founded in 1955, by Norman Mailer among others, the Voice was America’s…
On August 30, New America president Anne-Marie Slaughter terminated the left-leaning think tank’s relationship with scholar Barry C. Lynn and his Open Markets program. Slaughter says that Lynn was not abiding by New America’s “standards of openness and institutional collegiality.” He says he was…
The crisis between the United States and North Korea shows no signs of abating. Indeed, Pyongyang escalated its provocations last week, firing a missile over Japan on August 29. Critics of the president cite his brash approach to Pyongyang as a factor behind North Korea’s belligerency. Some also…
As white supremacists go, Joey Gibson makes for a lousy one. For starters, he’s half Japanese. “I don’t feel like I’m Caucasian at all,” he says. Not to be a stickler for the rules, but this kind of talk could get you sent to Master Race remedial school.
To read the second and final stanza of Catherine Chandler’s “Chasubles”—“Summer’s a smiling charlatan / camouflaged in green / where violet truths lie mantled in / the seen and the unseen”—one might think American religious poetry is now much as it was in Emily Dickinson’s day. The reclusive maid…
The crisis between the United States and North Korea shows no signs of abating. Indeed, Pyongyang escalated its provocations last week, firing a missile over Japan on August 29. Critics of the president cite his brash approach to Pyongyang as a factor behind North Korea’s belligerency. Some also…
Much ink has recently been spilled because of America’s statues of Confederate generals; in Charlottesville, wicked men flying Nazi flags caused blood to be spilled as well. In hopes of avoiding further violence, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, recently removed its Confederate statues in the…
The classic books about presidential campaigns don’t fixate on chronology. They only use chronology—the run from primaries to conventions to debates to the election—to tell a bigger story, one that transcends the campaign.
During the 2016 presidential primary campaign, Jeb Bush took to calling Donald Trump the “chaos candidate.” It didn’t seem to have much effect at the time, but Bush was prescient: The chaos candidacy is now the chaos presidency. And yet, as Henry Adams once wrote, while order is the dream of man,…
Much ink has recently been spilled because of America’s statues of Confederate generals; in Charlottesville, wicked men flying Nazi flags caused blood to be spilled as well. In hopes of avoiding further violence, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, recently removed its Confederate statues in the…
In Chaos Monkeys, his memoir about his rocky career in high tech, Antonio García Martínez lists a few pithy rules for understanding how Silicon Valley really works. The best of these insider insights: “Company culture is what goes without saying.” That is, if you want really to understand the firms…
Disposing of a used couch in an urban neighborhood turns out to be a complicated affair.
In Chaos Monkeys, his memoir about his rocky career in high tech, Antonio García Martínez lists a few pithy rules for understanding how Silicon Valley really works. The best of these insider insights: “Company culture is what goes without saying.” That is, if you want really to understand the firms…
It was in the mid-1980s that I first heard the term “politically correct,” from an older housemate in Berkeley. She had a couple glasses of wine in her and was on a roll, venturing some opinions that were outré by the local standards. I thought the term witty and took it for her own coinage, but in…
Six years ago, on a July Tuesday in Los Angeles, members of MS-13’s downtown cell got into a fight with a rival gang. “Porky,” its leader, was none too pleased.
The Washington Post outdid itself last week in the dog-bites-man department, trumpeting one of those yawn-inducing nonevents that have come to be hyped in the age of the Trump resistance. Here’s the ballyhooed breaking news item: A long-time EPA employee is retiring. Yes, that’s the story.…
Los Angeles
Six years ago, on a July Tuesday in Los Angeles, members of MS-13’s downtown cell got into a fight with a rival gang. “Porky,” its leader, was none too pleased.
Los Angeles
The Washington Post outdid itself last week in the dog-bites-man department, trumpeting one of those yawn-inducing nonevents that have come to be hyped in the age of the Trump resistance. Here’s the ballyhooed breaking news item: A long-time EPA employee is retiring. Yes, that’s the story.…
Is the multinational behemoth that owns Budweiser—AB InBev—a threat to American beer? Democrats seem to think so. In their populist campaign manifesto for 2018, “A Better Deal,” they warn, “In the last year, InBev which owns Anheuser-Busch and is the world’s largest beer company, struck a deal to…
Some years ago, a group of newspaper reporters came up with a headline that could work with almost any story. Here’s what they agreed on: “They’re at it again.”
Is the multinational behemoth that owns Budweiser—AB InBev—a threat to American beer? Democrats seem to think so. In their populist campaign manifesto for 2018, “A Better Deal,” they warn, “In the last year, InBev which owns Anheuser-Busch and is the world’s largest beer company, struck a deal to…
Some years ago, a group of newspaper reporters came up with a headline that could work with almost any story. Here’s what they agreed on: “They’re at it again.”
Cambria, Calif.
The latest version of the Senate GOP’s bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare was pronounced dead the evening of Monday, July 17, when Utah senator Mike Lee and Kansas senator Jerry Moran announced their opposition, bringing the number of “no” votes to at least four. In a Senate that…
Donald Trump is angry and frustrated with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in our election. In his view, the inquiry doesn’t just call into question the legitimacy of his election. Now he feels his own family is a target and under siege. Trump blames the highest-ranking members of…
Donald Trump is angry and frustrated with the federal investigation into Russian meddling in our election. In his view, the inquiry doesn’t just call into question the legitimacy of his election. Now he feels his own family is a target and under siege. Trump blames the highest-ranking members of…
The latest version of the Senate GOP’s bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare was pronounced dead the evening of Monday, July 17, when Utah senator Mike Lee and Kansas senator Jerry Moran announced their opposition, bringing the number of “no” votes to at least four. In a Senate that…
Cambria, Calif.
When John Coltrane died 50 years ago this July, the New York Times wrote that he “was considered one of the most gifted modern jazz musicians of this decade.” It was a reserved, careful judgment—was considered not was; of this decade not of all time. In the years since, the qualifiers have all…
The latest threat to the American workforce has arrived, and it’s on four hooves.
Donald Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal. Brokered by the Obama administration and officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement has the stated purpose of preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. But the president believes the deal gave Iran…
The latest threat to the American workforce has arrived, and it’s on four hooves.
When John Coltrane died 50 years ago this July, the New York Times wrote that he “was considered one of the most gifted modern jazz musicians of this decade.” It was a reserved, careful judgment—was considered not was; of this decade not of all time. In the years since, the qualifiers have all…
Donald Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal. Brokered by the Obama administration and officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement has the stated purpose of preventing Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. But the president believes the deal gave Iran…
The response was typical Trumpism—with a soupçon of Mean Girls. Just as he had called jihadists “losers” a few weeks prior, the president reacted to North Korea’s test launch of a midrange ballistic missile on July 3 with a gibe that cut to the quick. “Does [Kim Jong-un] have anything better to do…
Jurupa Valley, Calif.
To the recent college graduates who have somehow failed to spend all of Daddy’s money in five-and-a-half years, fear not, tradition says you deserve a vacation. Consider it your version of the Grand Tour, the jaunt through Europe that served as the capstone to a formal education in centuries past…
Years ago the popular sociologist Vance Packard told me that he hated to have one of his books paired with another in a review. “All a review like that ever says is, ‘This book is better than that one,’ ” he complained, “and you can’t use a quote like that in an ad.”
In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Rep. Steve Scalise and fellow Republican lawmakers, there has understandably been a debate about the tenor of our political discourse. Is it too nasty? Does heated rhetoric incite violence? Do we all need to tone down the hyperbole?
George W. Bush has been painting for several years now, but has only recently become an artist. His first paintings, mostly of world leaders, were remarkably well received, even by an art establishment that had hardly been friendly to his administration. And yet, although those early paintings were…
George W. Bush has been painting for several years now, but has only recently become an artist. His first paintings, mostly of world leaders, were remarkably well received, even by an art establishment that had hardly been friendly to his administration. And yet, although those early paintings were…
In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Rep. Steve Scalise and fellow Republican lawmakers, there has understandably been a debate about the tenor of our political discourse. Is it too nasty? Does heated rhetoric incite violence? Do we all need to tone down the hyperbole?
Years ago the popular sociologist Vance Packard told me that he hated to have one of his books paired with another in a review. “All a review like that ever says is, ‘This book is better than that one,’ ” he complained, “and you can’t use a quote like that in an ad.”
More than eight years after they finished the new Yankee Stadium, I still get confused when I climb out of the subway at 161st and River Ave. Whoa—where did it go? The lot that used to hold the ballpark is empty. The stadium, I forget every time I visit the Bronx, is across the street. It's like a…
Huge demonstrations once again swept through Russia on June 12, as thousands took to the streets in over 160 cities to protest the corruption and authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin's regime. This followed street protests by Russia's emerging opposition in February and March that were the biggest in…
So there I am Tuesday morning, wheezing away on my exercise bike, trying to stay alert to telltale signs of the inevitable coronary thrombosis, when, for the first time in many, many years, I switch on the TV to watch Morning Joe.
Huge demonstrations once again swept through Russia on June 12, as thousands took to the streets in over 160 cities to protest the corruption and authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin's regime. This followed street protests by Russia's emerging opposition in February and March that were the biggest in…
So there I am Tuesday morning, wheezing away on my exercise bike, trying to stay alert to telltale signs of the inevitable coronary thrombosis, when, for the first time in many, many years, I switch on the TV to watch Morning Joe.
More than eight years after they finished the new Yankee Stadium, I still get confused when I climb out of the subway at 161st and River Ave. Whoa—where did it go? The lot that used to hold the ballpark is empty. The stadium, I forget every time I visit the Bronx, is across the street. It's like a…
Strange news from Wisconsin. A student at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison has petitioned to have the name of her school changed, arguing, “The significance of this name in association with my school has a negative effect on memorials [sic] black students. The lack of representation I…
At Evergreen State College, the revolution will be televised. And it already has been, thanks to the smartphone.
What did we learn from James Comey, the fired FBI director, when he testified on June 8 before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee? Not enough to prove Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment, as the president's most strident opponents were hoping. Neither…
To see it, you need to ascend to the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and wend your way to the northernmost corner. Here is the American art gallery. Slip through the long hall of bottles and vases, and past the earthy and sometimes gritty works of the Ashcan school. Stop in…
Strange news from Wisconsin. A student at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison has petitioned to have the name of her school changed, arguing, “The significance of this name in association with my school has a negative effect on memorials [sic] black students. The lack of representation I…
At Evergreen State College, the revolution will be televised. And it already has been, thanks to the smartphone.
What did we learn from James Comey, the fired FBI director, when he testified on June 8 before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee? Not enough to prove Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment, as the president's most strident opponents were hoping. Neither…
Donald Trump's recent sojourn in the Middle East leaves the United States where it was before the president departed: His administration remains committed to containing Iran while philosophically adopting a pre-9/11 approach to combating Sunni Islamic militancy. Sunni Arab leaders have reason to be…
As the 2016 presidential campaign neared its final throes, the journalist Salena Zito offered an elegant explanation of the chasm between the political-media class, which beheld Donald Trump as an unelectable clown, and those Americans propelling him toward victory. "[T]he press takes him…
Donald Trump's recent sojourn in the Middle East leaves the United States where it was before the president departed: His administration remains committed to containing Iran while philosophically adopting a pre-9/11 approach to combating Sunni Islamic militancy. Sunni Arab leaders have reason to be…
Alexandria, Va.
Edward Said saved my life. And I don't mean that the work of the late American intellectual and Palestinian activist rescued me when I needed intellectual or emotional or moral sustenance. Sure, at one point in my political odyssey, Said's work was important to me. Even now, though my ideas about…
The Prince of Wales did not mince words in warning about the ravages of global warming. No piddling nonsense about a few inches of sea-rise; nothing so trivial as coastal erosion; no focus on the plight of the polar bear. No, the prince had a louder alarm he was sounding, one about the Future of…
The Prince of Wales did not mince words in warning about the ravages of global warming. No piddling nonsense about a few inches of sea-rise; nothing so trivial as coastal erosion; no focus on the plight of the polar bear. No, the prince had a louder alarm he was sounding, one about the Future of…
Edward Said saved my life. And I don't mean that the work of the late American intellectual and Palestinian activist rescued me when I needed intellectual or emotional or moral sustenance. Sure, at one point in my political odyssey, Said's work was important to me. Even now, though my ideas about…
Donald Trump is fond of claiming that his predecessor mismanaged America's role in the world. "And I have to just say that the world is a mess. I inherited a mess," the president noted during a joint press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan in the Rose Garden on April 5. "Whether it's the…
Like millions of American men, I spent a good number of weeknights in my youth donning a goofy uniform and heading off to church. The meetings all began the same way—we would rise from our folding chairs, make an odd gesture with our hands, and say, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to…
Rare is the reporter, it seems, who lets go by an opportunity to praise Britain's system of socialized medicine. And a perfect opportunity presented itself this month when the "WannaCry" computer virus seized networks worldwide.
The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction.
Rare is the reporter, it seems, who lets go by an opportunity to praise Britain's system of socialized medicine. And a perfect opportunity presented itself this month when the "WannaCry" computer virus seized networks worldwide.
The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction.
Like millions of American men, I spent a good number of weeknights in my youth donning a goofy uniform and heading off to church. The meetings all began the same way—we would rise from our folding chairs, make an odd gesture with our hands, and say, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to…
I don't blow but I'm a fan. Look at me swing, ring-a-ding-ding. I even call my girlfriend 'man.' . . . Every Saturday night with my suit Buttoned tight and my suedes on I'm getting my kicks digging arty French Flicks with my shades on. —"I'm Hip" lyrics by Dave Frishberg The first distinction…
Wallingford, Conn.
Barack Obama took a break from his packed schedule of playdates with billionaires last week to go to Boston, where the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation presented him with its ever-so-prestigious "Profile in Courage AwardTM." Yes, the JFK folks have trademarked "Profile in Courage."…
Barack Obama took a break from his packed schedule of playdates with billionaires last week to go to Boston, where the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation presented him with its ever-so-prestigious "Profile in Courage AwardTM." Yes, the JFK folks have trademarked "Profile in Courage."…
Barack Obama took a break from his packed schedule of playdates with billionaires last week to go to Boston, where the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation presented him with its ever-so-prestigious "Profile in Courage AwardTM." Yes, the JFK folks have trademarked "Profile in Courage."…
I don't blow but I'm a fan. Look at me swing, ring-a-ding-ding. I even call my girlfriend 'man.' . . . Every Saturday night with my suit Buttoned tight and my suedes on I'm getting my kicks digging arty French Flicks with my shades on. —"I'm Hip" lyrics by Dave Frishberg The first distinction…
Wallingford, Conn.
Abortion is back: back in the news, back in the American political scene, back in the fights that rage through a party as it tries to understand itself. Last time we saw this, it was during Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination, when three months in a row—February, March, and April…
President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark in office last week. While the West Wing staff tried furiously to spin his executive pronouncements as a demonstration that he has kept his campaign promises, he can so far boast of zero legislative accomplishments of note. Worse, no prospective…
Abortion is back: back in the news, back in the American political scene, back in the fights that rage through a party as it tries to understand itself. Last time we saw this, it was during Donald Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination, when three months in a row—February, March, and April…
When Reince Priebus wants to talk with the most powerful aide in the West Wing, he steps out of his corner office, walks down the hall toward the Oval Office, and knocks on the door of Jared Kushner—sometimes twice. Priebus may be the chief of staff, but it's he who waits for Kushner, the…
President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark in office last week. While the West Wing staff tried furiously to spin his executive pronouncements as a demonstration that he has kept his campaign promises, he can so far boast of zero legislative accomplishments of note. Worse, no prospective…
Ever since Donald Trump was elected, we've been in the middle of a dystopian fiction craze. The anti-Trumpers have sought to understand (and indulge in self-satisfied frissons of terror at) the rise of the Donald by imagining that the current moment is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or…
Ever since Donald Trump was elected, we’ve been in the middle of a dystopian fiction craze. The anti-Trumpers have sought to understand (and indulge in self-satisfied frissons of terror at) the rise of the Donald by imagining that the current moment is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or…
The rise of Donald Trump began a debate about the proper place of nationalism in American politics. A growing chorus on the political right, including even many who opposed his candidacy, has been praising the president’s "America First" agenda as a healthy restoration of nationalism and fleshing…
Last May, I traveled to Rome with a small group of journalists. We met with bishops and cardinals. We toured the Scavi beneath St. Peter's and explored the Vatican Museums with a renowned art historian. We were welcomed onto the terrace atop the papal apartment, giving us an extraordinary view of…
Last year Republicans persuaded a majority of Americans that Obamacare should be "repealed and replaced." Even Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton expected that President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders would promptly offer a viable alternative to Obamacare. The president's…
The September 2016 article in Politico championing Hillary Clinton’s use of "data analytics" now looks—how shall we put it?—rather premature.
Last year Republicans persuaded a majority of Americans that Obamacare should be “repealed and replaced." Even Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton expected that President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders would promptly offer a viable alternative to Obamacare. The president's…
The September 2016 article in Politico championing Hillary Clinton’s use of "data analytics" now looks—how shall we put it?—rather premature.
The word around Capitol Hill is that Republicans are preparing to revive the dormant American Health Care Act after members return from their Easter break. Lawmakers have tried adding some conservative muscle to the bill in an effort to make weight. But a central reason why the AHCA could be back…
One of the most tedious aspects of our politics is partisan battles over legislative procedure. To hear each side tell it, the opposition never hesitates to employ unprecedented tactics to further narrow political goals at great cost to the republic. Such arguments are almost always disingenuous.…
One of the most tedious aspects of our politics is partisan battles over legislative procedure. To hear each side tell it, the opposition never hesitates to employ unprecedented tactics to further narrow political goals at great cost to the republic. Such arguments are almost always disingenuous.…
At 39, Tom Cotton is the youngest member of the Senate. He was elected from Arkansas in 2014 after two years in the House. And having served in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantry captain, he quickly emerged as an influential senator on military and foreign affairs.
It might come as news to the millions of pink-hatted anti-Trump marchers, the marauding rioters at Berkeley and Middlebury, and the anti-pipeline hippies in North Dakota, but apparently Americans’ right to protest is under threat. We know that because two "special rapporteurs on freedom of…
After the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—the House Republican alternative to Obamacare—there was plenty of blame to go around. President Donald Trump pointed his finger at the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), the group of 30 or so conservatives who largely opposed the bill, tweeting,…
There once was an informal editorial motto that guided the selection of topics in Style, the Washington Post lifestyle section: "If a story is worth doing, it's worth doing every year." But in the age of Trump, that schedule has become rather compressed: The Post is now doing the same article about…
There once was an informal editorial motto that guided the selection of topics in Style, the Washington Post lifestyle section: “If a story is worth doing, it's worth doing every year." But in the age of Trump, that schedule has become rather compressed: The Post is now doing the same article about…
After the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—the House Republican alternative to Obamacare—there was plenty of blame to go around. President Donald Trump pointed his finger at the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), the group of 30 or so conservatives who largely opposed the bill, tweeting,…
Picture in your mind, for a moment, the Monopoly man. You know, the guy in the Parker Brothers board game who has a top hat and white handlebar mustache. He makes his money in real estate and railroads. Think how he probably invested that money.
April 4 rapidly approaches, the day that Winston Smith begins his illicit diary in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is thus the day that indie theaters across the country have chosen for a protest-screening of the 1984 movie version of George Orwell's dystopian tale. The movie houses are calling out, of…
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