A wealth of ideas rushed through my mind the other day as I was watching the production of Nineteen Eighty Four starring Richard Burton and John Hurt, which was released, by no coincidence, in 1984. Like Orwell’s novel, the film emphasizes the use of factual distortions to strengthen political domination, in this case that of Big Brother. In order to keep … [Read More]

“Pope calls for global government,” read the headlines in early July. Then, as night follows day, the Pope’s conservative supporters lined up to eviscerate the media for distorting the Pope’s meaning.  Those darn liberals—how dare they twist the Pontiff’s words like that. This is not exactly the first time such a thing has taken place. The pattern, over the past couple … [Read More]

“The sound alone was worth the $24 billion!” So said fellow Nixon speechwriter Ray Price as the mighty Saturn V rocket lifted Apollo 11 and Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins off the launch pad, three miles away, on the start of their voyage to the moon. It was a splendid moment in that first year of the Nixon presidency, a year that … [Read More]

Were the Founders “Post-Christian”? Two years ago, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham published American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. There, as in his public appearances and journalism since, Meacham argued that the United States were founded on a Madisonian vision of secular government. Meacham of course did not blaze any new trail making that argument. In … [Read More]