Archive: 2008

George W. Bush seems to have fits of divine inspiration whenever he gets into the vicinity of the Middle East. Back in 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, he…

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It may be the best known portrait ever produced. It was created between 1503 and 1506 by Leonardo da Vinci, crafted in oil on a wooden board. It is known…

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I Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten! Das arglose Wort ist töricht. Eine glatte Stirn Deutet auf Unempfindlichkeit hin. Der Lachende Hat die furchtbare Nachricht Nur noch nicht empfangen. Was…

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On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience…

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Charges of a rigged presidential election triggered violence along tribal lines in Kenya, leading to more than 700 deaths and the displacement of 250,000 Kenyans. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who…

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In Germany they call Marcel Reich-Ranicki the “Literaturpapst” — “the Pope of Literature.” And in America that title could only credibly be claimed by one person: Yale Literature professor Harold…

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Friday marked the sixth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the American GULAG constructed to house prisoners taken in the Bush Administration’s War on Terror in Guantánamo.…

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The late Mr. Justice Holmes once divided good lawyers into “razors” and “good kitchen knives.” Doubtless this omits many other varieties—guillotines (like Cecil Radcliffe), rapiers with not much edge but…

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—Herman Melville, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” Harper’s Magazine, April 1855 Herman Melville’s short story “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” which appeared…

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I saw a ship of material build (Her standards set, her brave apparel on) Directed as by madness mere Against a solid iceberg steer, Nor budge it, though the infactuate…

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I agree with you in thinking that the lawyer, and the congressman, and the editor, are in error, but only in so far as each claims peculiar facilities for the…

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Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis is the stuff of legends within the Department of Justice. He came to the institution in 1976, and is now the most senior career…

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Sed ante alias dilexit Marci Bruti matrem Serviliam, cui et primo suo consulatu sexagiens sestertium margaritam mercatus est et bello civili super alias donationes amplissima prædia ex auctionibus hastæ minimo…

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Three times in the last year I have sat together with lawyers and investigators looking into government contract corruption allegations—the first was at a House Judiciary Committee hearing looking into…

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All week long reporters and pundits have been issuing apologies for the coverage from New Hampshire, during which it was almost universally declared that Barack Obama would emerge as the…

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The Democratic Party and other leftist rabble are in big trouble. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s new Coalition for a Conservative Majority (CCM) is raising money from conservative donors…

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The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality, and which therefore…

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It was January 10, and it was a day like this one. Cold, damp, brisk. An attorney was sitting in court, but in an unusual situation: he was the accused.…

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Since Saturday they have been gathering up Berlin’s Jews; in the evening around 9:15 they are collected and locked up for the night in a synagogue. And then there is…

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Plus: Media Stockholm Syndrome It was amusing to watch the news last night and see so many pundits explain why they had essentially been right all along about the New…

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I just finished poring over yet another set of written answers from a former senior Justice Department official who—extremely unconvincingly—insists over and again that he “has no present recollection” of…

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Le Juste restait droit sur ses hanches solides : Un rayon lui dorait l’épaule ; des sueurs Me prirent : « Tu veux voir rutiler les bolides ? Et, debout,…

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Elmire: Mais des arrêts du Ciel on nous fait tant de peur. Tartuffe: Je puis vous dissiper ces craintes ridicules, Madame, et je sais l’art de lever les scrupules. Le…

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The story out of the Frank M. Johnson Federal Courthouse in Montgomery never seems to change. It is a chronicle of abusive conduct by a federal judge who treats his…

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I am getting lots of nudges from readers who want me to handicap races and comment on debates. I’m flattered that people think I’d be any good at that. I’m…

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