NEW YORK—When I heard about it, my own inchoate feelings were confused. A party for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, and the caller was Nat Rothschild, son of Lord Rothschild, a major donor to Jewish causes and Israel. What in Mohammed’s name was going on here? Nat Rothschild is no stranger to England thanks to his by now famous … [Read More]

Barack Obama and George W. Bush seem to have come away from their study of the Great Depression with similar conclusions: To wit: After the Crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve did not move fast enough to save the banks and inject cash into the economy. Second, the New Deal, far from being wastrel deficit spending, was not bold enough. So … [Read More]

In the frantic post-election scramble for a plausible narrative of How Things Went So Wrong, we see the outlines of the future battle for what’s left of the conservative movement, and the party it fitfully influences. The spin could be decisive, as spin often is. The spin that prevailed in Germany after World War I—“We were stabbed in the back”—bore no … [Read More]

Those who cheer for Obama now are essentially cheering for nothing, as those who bash Obama are essentially bashing nothing. Obama has done nothing. But like a team mascot, a Mohawk haircut or the Cross, Obama the symbol creates a divide to which many feel compelled to take sides and defend or attack accordingly. They may not know why, but they … [Read More]

The following address was given to the H.L. Mencken Club’s Annual Meeting; November 21-23, 2008 My study at home in Long Island has bookshelves on all four walls. When I originally stocked those shelves, I worked out a system for doing so. The shelves on the north wall, directly behind me as I sit at my desk, are all reference books. … [Read More]

With all due respect to Derek Turner and the authors of A Bridge Too Far, Philip Claeys and Koen Dillen, and the Vlaams Belang, the organization to which these excellent young men belong, I must dissent from their brief against Turkish entry into the European Union. The last reason I could imagine for keeping Turkey out of that cesspool of political … [Read More]

The morning after Barack Obama’s election, the congratulatory message from Moscow was in the chilliest tradition of the Cold War. “I hope for constructive dialogue with you,” said Russia’s president, “based on trust and considering each other’s interests.” Dmitry Medvedev went on that day, in his first State of the Union, to charge America with fomenting the Russia-Georgia war and said … [Read More]

Neoconservatives afraid that a President Obama might even partially live up his promise to remove troops from Iraq have been warming up to the new administration and hedging their bets where they can. Not since Operation Chaos during the primaries have we seen some Republicans so anxious to jump off the “Stop-Hillary Express” and on the Clinton bandwagon. The sort of … [Read More]

Discussed in the essay: A Bridge Too Far—Turkey in the European Union, by Philip Claeys and Koen Dillen (Uitgeverij Egmont Publishing, 2008), 224 pages. Below the half-fallen ochre walls are piles of rubbish, human excrement, skinny dogs, darting lizards and wide-eyed gypsies, the latter staring back at us as we pick our way with difficulty along the undulating course of the … [Read More]

As the Federal bailout bonanza prepares to spread beyond the mortgage and financial sectors to fill Detroit’s depleted coffers, few economic or policy analysts have spared a thought for the destitution of the U.S. government itself. Put simply, our government doesn’t have enough spare cash to bailout a lemonade stand let alone a bloated and failing industry that is losing tens … [Read More]