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]

Under consideration: Michael Pollan, The Omnivor’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Penguin (2006), 464 pages; and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Penguin (2008), 256 pages.  A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of Kansas secessionists. The participants were rowdy, complaining of economic gigantism squashing them flat and bureaucratic thugs hounding their every move. They were all … [Read More]

Of all the candidates for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, only one took the time to address the 35th-annual March for Life on Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. On the day of the march, this candidate, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, received the endorsement of Norma McCorvey, the eponymous “Jane Roe” of 1974, who since the verdict converted … [Read More]

The tale is told by M. F. Barnes, in her 1931 study Renaissance Vistas (and it has often been depicted by great painters, notably Botticelli and Carpaccio), of Saint Augustine, wandering along the seashore. Lost in cogitation upon the Holy Trinity, the saint meets a small boy who busies himself filling a hole in the sand with teaspoonfuls of water from … [Read More]

Even the editors of Time magazine can occasionally display some some wisdom, and to begin the new year, they got two things right: first, they canned Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer; second, they named President Vladimir Putin "Person of the Year." Putin may not be very well understood in the America, but he’s certainly deserving of the prize. The recent Russian … [Read More]

Uncovering the roots of the disastrous home mortgage bubble that popped last year will keep economic historians busy for decades. Yet, one factor has so far been largely overlooked: the bipartisan social engineering crusade to drive up the rate of homeownership by handing out more mortgages to minorities. More than a negligible amount of the blame for the mortgage meltdown can … [Read More]