Archive: 2008

The recent debate at Washington University in Saint Louis between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin was the most watched vice presidential debate of all time. Polling and pundits…

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Cuelga sangriento de la cama al suelo el hombro diestro del feroz tirano, que opuesto al muro de Betulia en vano, despidió contra sí rayos al cielo. Revuelto con el…

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Quæ dum mirarer singula et nunc terrenum aliquid saperem, nunc exemplo corporis animum ad altiora subveherem, visum est mihi Confessionum Augustini librum, caritatis tuæ munus, inspicere; quem et conditoris et…

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I was pleased to read Adam Gopnik’s report this week on Richard Reeves’s new biography, John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand (Overlook). Mill (1806-1873), writer of On Liberty and The Subjection…

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Rich Lowry of National Review was highly impressed, even aroused, by Sarah Palin’s debate performance last night: And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing…

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For readers in D.C., I’ll be at Politics and Prose Bookstore this Sunday to discuss and take questions on Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship.…

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I’ve already said that I can understand why some Republicans are complaining about Gwen Ifill being the moderator for tonight’s debate, even though the charges about Ifill’s partisanship are wildly…

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The Judicial Confirmation Network (JCN), a conservative independent group, is running new anti-Obama TV ads in battleground states that feature the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. “Obama chose as his pastor a…

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“It is a blatant conflict of interest,” Bay Buchanan said on CNN last night. “There’s no question about that.” “She’s tough as nails right down the middle,” Paul Begala said…

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“The things I’ve seen in Antwerp are not to be described,” Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916), né Rabinovich, writes in his novel Motl, the Cantor’s Son. Aleichem wrote in Yiddish, and the…

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Kazakhstan has been heavily criticized by international observers for its human rights violations, descriptions of which run to the horrifying and lurid, for its rigged elections, and for the fact…

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From the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law: Election officials across the country are routinely striking millions of voters from the rolls through a process that is…

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Excerpted from Chapter 10 of You Can’t Be President: The outrageous barriers to democracy in America, published by Melville House. John R. MacArthur is the publisher of Harper’s Magazine. More from…

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Northwestern University Law Professor Steven Calabresi was a co-founder of the Federalist Society and has been in the vanguard of the conservative movement ever since. He served in the Reagan…

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A few weeks ago a former senior executive at Halliburton pleaded guilty to paying bribes to Nigerian officials to win a mammoth energy project in that country. The executive, Jack…

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A Christian martyr. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777 points in one day after the House of Representatives failed to pass a Wall Street bailout plan, first put forth…

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Today the Justice Department’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility jointly issued a complex, detailed report investigating the dismissal of nine U.S. Attorneys in December 2006. The “process used…

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In a 1996 letter Guy Davenport offered me the following fact, following it with a snippet of on-the-fly fiction: In my previous post, mentioning Jack Green’s Fire the Bastards!–a screed…

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From the Associated Press: A former executive director of the CIA has pleaded guilty to wire fraud as part of a plea bargain. Kyle “Dusty” Foggo was the number three…

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When even some conservatives are calling for Sarah Palin to be replaced as John McCain’s running mate, you know she’s in serious trouble. But it’s unlikely that Palin will be…

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“As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos,” the New York…

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One of the major breakthroughs of the first McCain–Obama debate on Friday night passed with almost no notice. Both John McCain and Barack Obama, in characterizing their opposition to the…

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Poi che spiegat’ho l’ali al bel desio, quanto più sott’il piè l’aria mi scorgo, più le veloci penne al vento porgo: e spreggio il mondo, e vers’il ciel m’invio. Né…

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Should the media be scrutinizing the record of Sarah Palin, who until a few weeks ago was the relatively unknown governor of Alaska? Yes. Does Palin’s general lack of political…

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There didn’t seem to be any clear winner in last night’s presidential debate, which presumably is good for Barack Obama since he seems to be slightly ahead at this point.…

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Disponiamoci, dico, prima nel cielo che intellettualmente è dentro di noi, e poi in questo sensibile che corporalmente si presenta a gli occhi. Togliemo via dal cielo de l’animo nostro…

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“The worst review is no review. Blackest marks go to Harper’s, New Leader, New Republic, Booklist, a few newspapers & most of the quarterlies (they were busy measuring Henry James’s…

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