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While the Bush Administration’s public integrity lawyers are busy staking out a Democratic governor’s rendez-vous with an expensive call-girl, and attempting to shut down the work of a state legislature…

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The Irishman, finding himself in another environment, outside Ireland, very often knows how to make his worth felt. The economic and intellectual conditions of his homeland do not permit the…

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The Guantánamo Commissions are being whipped ahead by the Bush Administration, but as things progress does anyone mistake this process for justice? Certainly not the participants. The military lawyers who…

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Goya’s Ghosts (Europe 2006, U.S. 2007) a film by Miloš Forman with Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem and Stellan Skarsgård. On the recommendation of some European friends, I just secured the…

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Harper’s legal affairs contributor Scott Horton will make three media appearances today – On Ian Masters’ Background Briefing at 11:20 a.m. Pacific time on NPR’s Southern California flagship station, KPFK…

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I have met them at close of day Coming with vivid faces From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head Or…

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In a review in the New York Times, John Leonard once wrote that Garry Wills “reads like a combination of H. L. Mencken, John Locke and Albert Camus.” That seems…

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I don’t in the ordinary course review and recommend law review articles, but I’ve just come across one that is close to indispensable for public affairs junkies. On December 7,…

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I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro stations flew by; I didn’t notice them. What can be done, if our sight lacks absolute power to devour objects…

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Some of my readers complain that I am contributing to the feeding frenzy surrounding Spitzer-Gate, and that I should show a bit more perspective. Message heard. So here’s some perspective.…

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Glenn Greenwald and I recently agreed in an Air America interview that all signs pointed to the House of Representatives folding and giving President Bush most of what he wanted…

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Campaign Money Frolic? Yesterday, comparing the Spitzer case with politically-motivated prosecutions in other parts of the country, I started assembling a check list of what’s missing. Two things I noted…

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The Imminent Threat Posed by Teachers Much as the conduct of prosecutors in New York has captured the national imagination, conditions in Alabama are far more interesting and worthy of…

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The forward youth that would appear, Must now forsake his Muses dear, Nor in the shadows sing His numbers languishing. ‘Tis time to leave the books in dust, And oil…

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The Religion that is afraid of science dishonours God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a…

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With two extraordinary infomercials, MTV asks its viewers to think seriously about what happens in a police state. Is the prospect so unthinkable? Watch these scenes and reflect on it…

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I love to argue with my colleague Ken Silverstein, so how could I pass up a reply to his last post? Most people view the issues surrounding the Spitzer resignation…

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Barry Kamins, the president of the prestigious New York City Bar Association, has issued a stinging letter to senior Congressional leaders calling for hearings on the independence and integrity of…

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In today’s New York Times, a New Jersey Republican politician and former prosecutor, John Farmer (whom the Times inexplicably fails to identify by his political badge—an issue that the Public…

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Catholic University historian Jerry Z. Muller writes in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that Americans have a tendency to under-assess the importance of nationalism as a political force around…

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In order to obtain a correct estimate of ourselves, we must reflect on the results of the investigations which have been made into the dimensions and the distances of the…

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I walk through the issues surrounding the investigation of Eliot Spitzer and ask whether they show signs of political motivation in an article just up at The New Republic.

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This month Washington Monthly offers a special, theme-oriented issue. The editors write: In most issues of the Washington Monthly, we favor articles that we hope will launch a debate. In…

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“Bei dem traurigen Anblick nicht sowohl der Übel, die das menschliche Geschlecht aus Naturursachen drücken, als vielmehr derjenigen, welche die Menschen sich untereinander selbst anthun, erheitert sich doch das Gemüth…

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Die Aufgabe der Religion: die Menschheit zu trösten, die zum Galgen geht. Die Aufgabe der Politik: Sie lebensüberdrüssig zu machen; die Aufgabe der Humanität: ihr die Galgenfrist zu verkürzen und…

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Frederick Douglass was traveling with a friend of another color in a part of the country where public sentiment was bitterly hostile to the association of colors. They stopped at…

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At the peak of the Civil Rights movement, when my first thoughts about civics were formed, the Department of Justice assumed a promethean role. Most of Washington was, of course,…

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