In perhaps a new low in the ignorance, self righteousness, and over-sensitivity of African American politicians, two black officials in Dallas objected to the use of the term “black hole.”  During a meeting about traffic tickets, white county commissioner Kenneth Mayfield said that an office “has become a black hole” in reference to the way paperwork would often disappear. John Wiley … [Read More]

This might surprise you, but I wasn’t always such a mild, soft-spoken guy. Before my conversion to St. Francis of Assisi’s gospel of peace, you might have called me… contentious. Provoked, I acted rather “prickly”—and I mean that as an adverb. Growing up bookish in a blue collar ‘hood full of guys named Vito who thought my pointy head could … [Read More]

“The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives–people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary–plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.” Sounds like Pat Buchanan, writing well before the first … [Read More]

Last week I got into a discussion with my older son and a neighbor (who is an economics professor) concerning the social positions of John McCain. My son, who tried to convince us that McCain would be a less dangerous president than his Democratic opponent, went through the supposedly conservative stances McCain had taken while in the Senate. He was judged … [Read More]

Without my winter beard I’ve got a baby face, and am often mistaken for a 30-year-old. But teaching college students gives me frequent reminders that I really am fortysomething. These kids don’t remember Communism. It collapsed in Eastern Europe while they were in tiny diapers, and most of what they know of the Soviet bloc comes from the character Borat. So … [Read More]

With 68 percent of Americans believing George Bush has done a poor job, and 82 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, the election of 2008 will turn on one issue: Barack Obama. If Sen. Obama can convince the people he is “one of us,” and not some snooty radical liberal from Chicago’s Hyde Park, who looks down upon … [Read More]

Once in a lifetime there comes a legislator so great that he transcends ideologies, political parties and personalities. Such a man was Jesse A. Helms, Jr. (R-NC). His greatness is beyond words. His opponents called him mean. He was one of the kindest Senators ever to grace the United States Capitol. His opponents claimed that young people hated the Senator. Among … [Read More]

The boasts by Mexican nationalists about “reconquista” used to sound comical to most American ears, little more than banana-republic bravado. Americans who took this reconquista rhetoric seriously were breezily dismissed as cranks or alarmists, “black helicopter” people imagining world events controlled by the Trilateral Commission or, worse, by the Elders of Zion. But as Mexican immigration—most of it illegal—has continued at … [Read More]

In what is surely an “only in America” phenomenon, the most patriotic holiday of the year celebrates the overthrow of the government. That says a lot about this country, or, rather, about the way it used to be. This time around, the Fourth merely underscores how far we have wandered, and raises the question of when we reached that fork … [Read More]

Not until a year after Lexington did the Continental Congress muster the resolve to declare the 13 colonies free and independent states, no longer subject to Parliament or Crown. Not for five years after July 4, 1776, did George Washington’s army truly attain America’s independence at Yorktown. Even then, Washington and his aide Alexander Hamilton knew that the 13 states, while … [Read More]