From National Disgrace Online April 1, 2009 Dear President Obama, Be assured that no one surpasses us here at NDO in appreciating what you’ve done an overcoming of our country’s stinking racist past. And even before you came along, we were among the first to proclaim your spiritual predecessor Martin Luther King as a “conservative thinker” and, above all, as a … [Read More]

Sometimes neoconservatives, (or should I say movement conservatives?) say things that are so stupid that one mistakes them for satire. Last week the New York Post republished an opinion piece from the Commentary blog Contentions, which had been produced by Wall Street Journal columnist Max Boot. Presumably Max’s opinion carry enormous weight throughout the Beltway policy community. After all, this crusader … [Read More]

Editor Richard Spencer has asked me—and indeed all the Takimag gang—to record our predictions for the coming year, but I have to say that I take this to mean he wants us to get our fingers moving and write something–because all punditry is prediction, in an important sense. Every time one advocates a particular policy, or descries another, the author is … [Read More]

December not only marks the advent of “the Holidays” but, for America’s growing population of undergraduates, is a time of exams, papers, and NoDoz-assisted “all-nighters.” The following selections come from the final examination for “Western Heritage,” offered at the State University of New York, Oswego. The students were asked to write an essay discussing the theme of “order” in the course’s … [Read More]

As we clear away all the wrapping paper and wonder how long to leave up the decorations, the deeper meaning of the season easily eludes us. So it’s good that Friday’s New York Times addressed the question that nags at the back our minds this time each year: Could “over-commercialization spoil Kwanzaa?” It’s best not to read such a sentence with … [Read More]

As the multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme orchestrated by Wall Street insider Bernard Madoff unravels in the media spotlight, the nation is being presented with a rare opportunity to understand the true nature of many of our most cherished financial structures. Hopefully we have the wisdom to connect the dots. Although the $50 billion loss engineered by Madoff is truly a staggering … [Read More]

When Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was caught on tape trying to sell president-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat, commented federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald: “The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering.” But Blagojevich’s “pay-to-play” scheme, in which political favors are dispensed by public officials in exchange for compensation, is so common in government that the line between corrupt and … [Read More]

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]

There are two types of people who may find this article interesting. If you’re involved in a 12-step program of any kind and maintain your sobriety, but secretly delight in the confessions of relapse or of wild times before Antabuse, you might enjoy what follows as your daily does of Schadenfreude. If you’re a traditionalist chagrined over the infiltration of the … [Read More]

When the Soviet Union collapsed, it seemed for 20 minutes or so that America might revert from being a crusade back into a country. For 50 years, we’d served as the arsenal of democracy, its moneybags, its poolhall bouncer. With the cave-in of Communism—accomplished through means miraculous, by unarmed Polish dockworkers, without a war—it appeared we might catch a break. Our … [Read More]