Prediction is famously difficult, as one wag put it, especially if it is about the future. So now that we’ve passed the five year mark in the Iraq adventure, who was in fact right about the likely costs of it? Certainly it wasn’t those proposing the invasion, some of whom proposed numbers as low as $50 billion in total costs. Joe … [Read More]

Recently, the Associated Press breathlessly proclaimed, “Number Of Hate Groups Rising, Report Says,” parroting claims from the Montgomery, AL based Southern Poverty Law Center.  Despite the group’s assertion, there is not a proliferation of hate groups, just an ever expanding definition of “hate” the SPLC uses to include perfectly mainstream conservatives and opponents of illegal immigration, most recently the Federation for … [Read More]

You Got That Right—Matt Yglesias on the arrogance of the neocons: “The attitude of thoughtless, unreflective scorn that you see from the Pollacks and Kirchicks and Goldfarbs of the world is like it comes from some weird alternative reality where their ideas have generally been deemed vindicated, rather than one where 178% of the public says we’re on the wrong … [Read More]

It has happened at last. The oh-so-clever marketers of Absolut have managed to create a political incident with one of their ads for their undistinguished liquor, giving me a pretext to blog about the history of vodka. Many of you might already have heard about the ad, which ran in Mexican media, pandering to those among that populace who yearn for … [Read More]

Disclaimer:   This is the first in a series of pieces critical of certain types of arguments that many pro-life advocates make.  My concern is that they have negative consequences for other issues and the conservative movement as a whole.  It is not my intention to disparage the pro-life cause, which I am sympathetic to. Affirmative action used to be one … [Read More]

NEW YORK—Their memorials were held five days apart, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues, each one attended by more than two thousand worshipping fans, both attracting A-list mourners as well as the poor and the humble. William Buckley and Norman Mailer had great send-offs, the former, as a devout Catholic, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, on 5th Avenue, the latter, … [Read More]

His campaign slogan boasts of “Change We Can Believe In.” He tells voters that “Americans are hungry for a new kind of politics.” Rolling Stone dubs him “A New Hope.” Barack Obama is the identikit Democratic presidential candidate. He has Jack Kennedy’s youthful charisma, Jimmy Carter’s reputation as the fresh-start outsider, and Michael “son of Greek immigrants” Dukakis’s American success story. … [Read More]

My last full-length essay on Taki evoked so many thoughtful comments, including essays by Daniel Larison and Richard Spencer (and a long opinion piece by Gerald Russello on the American Conservative website) that I am producing this detailed clarification. The critical thrust of the comments received was more or less the following: First of all, I have overstated the difference … [Read More]

Our view of what kind of nation we are is related to the question of “nationalism.” Are we a normal nation?  A “creedal” nation?  An “exceptional” nation?  For many on the left and the neoconservative right, America is only authentic and just when it uses its immense power in a selfless ideological struggle on behalf of the powerless. This view of … [Read More]

My original plan for this post was to address the question of what “hubristic patriotism” is, but I will take a detour and address some of Dan’s points from his most recent post.  There is clearly a tension between Dan’s view that any American nationalist will want to preserve the ethnocultural heritage of the Anglo-American and European past and the claim … [Read More]