On Sunday, I spoke at an event organized by a coalition of peace groups marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. It’s the kind of event I like doing: no fuss, no muss, all I had to do was walk a few blocks to the Unitarian Universalist church over on Franklin Street. It was a beautiful spring day, … [Read More]

It is fitting that one of the signal events of what will likely become the second Bush recession has been the Federal Reserve’s propping up of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns. For years, Wall Street has opposed any such bailouts of old-line manufacturing firms being swept away by the tsunami of free trade, and has applauded as employers have cut … [Read More]

I spent much of winter 2006 butting heads with a cantankerous nun. Thankfully, it happened via email, and in no way resembled the battles with hirsute radical feminists in stretch jeans that ate up most of my high school years. No, I contended with a solidly orthodox battle-ax who is still a distinguished historian of World War II. We had no … [Read More]

The front page of the Globe and Mail in Vancouver, where I was lecturing last week, explained on March 12 that the “sex scandal” that had engulfed former Governor Eliot Spitzer and which had precipitated his resignation left “Albany in disarray yesterday still struggling to comprehend revelations” that “the governor had paid thousands of dollars to an escort service for a … [Read More]

I, too, am “glad” that we defeated the Third Reich, and there’s much to admire about John’s defense of American “interventionism” in WWII. (Although it should be remembered that even if FDR did a lot of scheming and lend-leasing before Dec. 11, 1941, Germany did declare war on us, and thus it seems the whole question of “interventionism” is moot). It … [Read More]

The most emotionally powerful argument John advances is that America was descended from Europe, shared in European civilization, and so could not have stood by while Europe was subjected to either German or Soviet control.  But he phrases this in an interesting way: “The conquest of Europe…was a prospect unacceptable to a nation that was mostly descended from Europe…”  Yet it … [Read More]

John has challenged us to think about the interventionist case for WWII and gives what is probably the best possible angle on the interventionist view that anyone is likely to find.  There is, refreshingly, no talk of appeasement, nor any glorification of the “Western democracies” and none of the other usual German-bashing trappings of WWII apologia.  John forces the Christian traditionalist … [Read More]

During the 2006 elections, there was one candidate for office who excited disaffected conservatives more than any other. No, it wasn't a Republican like John Hostettler, Walter Jones, or even Ron Paul. It wasn't any of the candidates who took up the immigration-restrictionist banner while the Bush administration was pushing for amnesty. Instead the great paleoconservative hope was James Webb, … [Read More]

As a hard-core paleocon who opposed virtually every U.S. intervention outside her borders since the end of the Cold War, I’ve often found myself conflicted when looking back at history. I abhor the demonization of “isolationists” practiced by neocon chickenhawks, but I can’t help agreeing that in the context of World War II, the interventionists were right. I admire men like … [Read More]

Around 15 years or so ago, I was fast asleep late in the morning when I got an ear-splitting telephone call from Greece. It was Vicki Woods, a Telegraph writer, and she sounded anxious. If memory serves, and it does because she wrote a subsequent piece about it which made it in “The Week,” the conversation went as follows: “Oh hello, … [Read More]