Undeniably, a powerful tide is running for the Democratic Party, with one week left to Election Day. Bush’s approval rating is 27 percent, just above Richard Nixon’s Watergate nadir and almost down to Carter-Truman lows. After each of those presidents reached their floors—in 1952, 1974, 1980—the opposition party captured the White House. Moreover, 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans think … [Read More]

Recently I’ve come across two statements that have evoked radically different public reactions. One is by a Minnesota Republican congresswoman, Michelle Bachmann, who told Chris Matthews on his TV program that Obama holds “anti-American views,” like other unnamed members of Congress. The far more significant remark is by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, who … [Read More]

The story so far: Old Blighty has been hit by a scandal of major proportions. People in high positions met in princely places and discussed matters not supposed to be talked about even on a yacht. In brief: Nat Rothschild, son of Lord (Jacob) Rothschild, is a partner in certain ventures of Oleg Deripaska, the richest of Russians and the sleaziest … [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]

Perhaps the only institution in America whose approval rating is beneath that of Congress is the media. Both have won their reputations the hard way. They earned them. Consider the fawning indulgence shown insider Joe Biden with the dripping contempt visited on outsider Sarah Palin. Twice last weekend, Biden grimly warned at closed-door meetings that a great crisis is coming early … [Read More]

Some readers have taken time to complain that they’ve detected self-referential material and personal anecdotes in my autobiographical humor columns. Week after week, they slog their way through 2,000-word articles which they do not enjoy, by an author in whom they are not interested, with unpromising titles that refer to that author’s destructive household pets, painful medical examinations, and time-wasting hobbies. … [Read More]

NEW YORK—“Oligarchs brace for a downturn,” screams a New York business headline, a fact that sends me rushing to buy hankies, now selling at a premium at every corner store. Bloomberg News calculates that the richest 25 Russian crooks on the Forbes list have lost a collective $230 billion since last March. Which means that the 25 richest thieves have lost … [Read More]

Contemporary liberalism claims open-ended tolerance as its guiding principle. The claim is an odd one, since every social order accepts some patterns of conduct but not others. Otherwise it would not be a social order at all. It should not be surprising that on examination the claim turns out to be false. In theory, of course, values can be freely chosen … [Read More]

Our representatives in Washington, alongside the easy-credit Federal Reserve and its Wise Leader, “Helicopter Ben,” have essentially subsidized a rash of misguided investments and profligate spending-sprees by consumers who’ve bought into the illusion of endless prosperity. Everyone knows about the Housing Bubble. Well, get ready for the even bigger Standard of Living Bubble, whose bursting is now upon us. Because real … [Read More]

One of my favorite moments in my long life was election nite 2004, chez Bill Buckley, where I had spent every presidential election since 1972. Henry Kissinger approached me and asked—referring to the magazine Pat Buchanan and I had launched two years previous—whom I’d be voting for. “Who have you endorsed?” I was quite drunk by then and although I had … [Read More]