The recent endorsement of Rudy by televangelist Pat Robertson has turned the former mayor’s supporters at National Review, the New York Post, and other obliging outposts of the neoconservative empire from a state of hope to one of outright jubilation. If Lawrence Kudlow, NR economics editor, is correct, the nomination “has been wrapped up.” Perhaps political observers such as George Will, … [Read More]

A feature article in the Sunday Washington Post (December 9, 2007) by Villanova Associate Professor of History, Robert Maranto, reached me through the kindness of a young colleague, April Kelly-Woessner. April, a diligent researcher, working with her husband Matthew Woessner, provided some of the relevant data for Maranto’s polemic. Supposedly Republicans are justified when they complain about having a hard … [Read More]

American politicians are not universally celebrated as adroit observers of international affairs. Indeed, a picture from the 2000 election of Governor George Bush reading The Economist seemed a more affected photo-op than Michael Dukakis’s disastrous tank ride in 1988. Smart-aleck journalists revel in flummoxing presidential aspirants by posing such annoying questions as “Who, sir, is the prime minister of Uganda?” … [Read More]

I’m watching Tim Russert rip Rudy apart on “Meet the Press”: during the course of an exchange over why Hizzoner’s then-girlfriend was getting police protection before anyone knew she was his girlfriend—Rudy’s answer: it was the NYPD’s decision, not mine - Russert asks if it’s okay, then, for the mistress of the President of the United States to get our tax … [Read More]

Most Catholics know this as the feast day that marks the fact that Jesus was born of a Virgin, without an earthly father. If you asked them why we had a separate feast for the Annunciation, they’d probably shrug and say, “I don’t know. Why does the Church do a lot of things? Why is bingo always on Wednesdays?”   … [Read More]

OK. Next to last column before the end of the year, and of course it has to be about the crisis that has enveloped Pug’s, the world’s most exclusive of clubs. For any of you which may have missed it, here, for the benefit of Speccie (London Spectator) readers, is the membership list:   Patron: Lady Gabriella Windsor.   President: Mr … [Read More]

It was a sunny day like any other in London, and if you believe this you will renew your subscription to The New Criterion. The truth is, I had not spent any time here for the better part of three years, and after the lackadaisically African, insular and solar, tranquillity of Sicily the steam-powered novelty of the metropolis was all … [Read More]

This must feel like a leg-deadening thwack on poor old Poddy. Norman Podhoretz, first in line of warmongers—as long as none of his kith or kin have to do the fighting—must feel in a tizzy these days. A new National Intelligence on Iran concludes that the Islamic Republic’s enrichment of uranium has “long been unrelated to a nuclear weapons program.” I … [Read More]

“Nothing can come of nothing” Shakespeare’s King Lear said, and it would appear that this truism has finally been recognized by the individuals who put together the current “National Intelligence Estimate” for the White House and Capital Hill. Supposedly, the output (the NIE) is the input from the 16—count ‘em, 16!—spy agencies of your federal government which evaluate the danger to … [Read More]

In what may well be the most self-serving neocon column ever published in the New York Post, LA Times guest columnist Tim Rutten has today attacked CNN as the “corrupt news network,” for advancing the fame of its “most popular news-oriented columnist Lou Dobbs.” According to Rutten, what we should be stressing is the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but unfortunately … [Read More]