Who killed the U.S. auto industry? To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for the future. I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists … [Read More]

In a recent phone conversation, Richard Spencer made an observation I then tried to qualify. Richard noted that Western Christians “are obsessed with being virtuous.” At a time when the Christian belief system has eroded, this fixation has led to exaggerated expressions of group self-denial and to the grotesque worship of the supposedly marginalized. I cannot say that Richard’s thesis struck … [Read More]

NEW YORK—Arletty was a great French star of the silver screen during the Thirties and Forties, but she was also known for a few outspoken apophthegms about having sex with a German officer during the occupation. ‘If you hadn’t let them in, I wouldn’t have slept with him,’ and the better known, ‘My heart is French, but my arse is international.’ … [Read More]

I’m working on too many speculative projects—and putting off the one that I’m sure would sell the best. Since I fear I’ll never get around to writing the thing, I’ve decided to spill the idea. If one of you can bang it out before I do, you deserve to rake in the bucks. Just invite me to one of your signings. … [Read More]

When New York Times columnist David Brooks pondered why the Republican Party was in such bad shape recently, he came to the conclusion that a majority of Americans simply no longer support traditional conservatism. Where one might have found any conservatism for the last decade is beyond me, but make no mistake—voters did not reject traditional conservatism on Nov. 4; they … [Read More]

David Frum has been purged off into the sunset at NR... He’s leaving his NRO blogging gig at the end of the year and plans to start up a new website called “NewMajority.com” We could, of course, indulge in a little Schadenfreude with Frumy—the man who tried to purge the conservative movement of the antiwar Right is now getting his comeuppance, … [Read More]

Understandably, Republicans are seething. When Hank Paulson demanded $700 billion to haul away the trash in the dumpsters of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs—assuring us we could hold a garage sale of the junk—they rebelled. They acted as the nation, by 100 to one, demanded. They killed the Wall Street bailout. The Dow quickly sank another 1,000 points, and, charged with … [Read More]

When the Soviet Union’s ramshackle empire imploded, and what Louis Bromfield called the “worldwide psychopathic cult” of Communism fell into an embarrassed quietude, it seemed the socialist dream was over. As it turned out, however, we should only have been so lucky. Socialism, the seizure of the means of production by the State, was by no means dead and buried: Indeed, … [Read More]

The classic interpretation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond character is that he stands as a kind of fantasy of Britishness the British people, and especially the elite, could indulge in during the rather grim 1950s—when the Sceptred Isle lost its empire, was usurped as a Great Power and banker to the world by Uncle Sam, and suffered under a social democracy … [Read More]

NEW YORK—Election nights in the Bagel were always spent at 73 East 73rd Street, in Bill and Pat Buckley’s house, more often than not described as palatial by eager-to-please gossip columnists. In reality it was a fine New York maisonette, better suited for entertainment rather than cosy living, the latter reserved for their tiny and warm Connecticut house. Alas, both Bill … [Read More]