Some people look at actress Jeri Ryan and see the former cover girl for Maxim and FHM. Some recall her days in a latex catsuit as Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager. Show biz junkies call her a show killer because she’s appeared in so many doomed series, from Dark Skies to Shark. But for me she will always be … [Read More]

With his public approval where Harry Truman’s stood when he left office, George W. Bush gave his last press conference yesterday. And like that predecessor he often identifies with, Bush showed a Trumanesque defiance of his critics—and a Trumanesque failure to understand what ruined his presidency. He denounced protectionism, as he has with dismissive contempt since he went to New Hampshire … [Read More]

Barack Obama, it is said, will inherit the worst times since the Great Depression. Not to minimize the crisis we are in, but we need a little perspective here. The Great Depression began with the Great Crash of 1929. By 1931, unemployment had reached 16 percent. By 1933, 89 percent of stock value had been wiped out, the economy had shrunk … [Read More]

About the appointment by Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, somebody big is lying, big-time. It is either the governor or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Last week, Reid declared that he would not permit Burris, the African-American elder statesman of Illinois politics, to fill Obama’s seat, or even to enter the Senate chamber, though no one … [Read More]

As a congressman and now governor, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford has had one primary guiding principle his entire political career—limited government. Not just limited government rhetoric, the sort of lip service paid by milk-toast Republicans to pacify their Right-leaning base, but genuine, strict, fiscal conservatism with the guts to back it up. If you ever need a good illustration of just … [Read More]

On the eve of the New Year, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, charged with conspiring to sell the Senate seat of Barack Obama, put the ball back squarely in the court of a Democratic Party that had disowned him. Blago named Roland Burris, former attorney general of Illinois and first African-American ever to win statewide office, to fill the vacated seat. National Democrats … [Read More]

The Beltway Right is still venting its collective spleen over Bill Kristol’s latest Times op-ed in which he argues, rather elliptically, that the conservative movement and GOP should get rid of its “small government,” “rugged individualism” talk, which scares people, and instead spend their years in exile developing a governing philosophy for the modern welfare state—not too big, not too small, … [Read More]

When America declared a “war on poverty” in the 1960’s, it was believed that even more assistance by the federal government would lead to eradicating the problem. What we got instead was bigger government and an army of dependents for whom welfare became not merely a helping hand but a way of life. When America declared a “war on terror” at … [Read More]

“All country people hate each other,” wrote William Hazlitt. “There is nothing good to be had in the country, or, if there is, they will not give it to you.” I wonder what Hazlitt would have made of last week’s convention. I was among those who found it slightly chilling to see America’s Mayor get his William Wordsworth on, and only … [Read More]

In my recent piece on the return of the conservative Democrat, I observed, “It remains to be seen whether the Dixiecrat revival will last.” If Glenn Greenwald has his way, the answer will be no: If simply voting for more Democrats will achieve nothing in the way of meaningful change, what, if anything, will? At minimum, two steps are required to … [Read More]