A lot of cyber-ink has been spilled over a post by Ross Douthat arguing that grassroots populists need elites.  At one level, of course, Douthat is perfectly correct:  every political movement needs a leadership class.  But when he suggests that, to be successful, a figure like Sarah Palin needs someone like David Brooks, Douthat is wrong.  The reason right-wing populism has … [Read More]

It has long been known that the Nobel Prizes in Peace and Literature are sometimes awarded to questionable characters such as Le Duc Tho, Yasser Arafat, and Dario Fo.  But even Nobel laureates in the hard sciences can make stupid pronouncements when they step outside their disciplines, as Chemistry laureate Harry Kroto recently proved in a broadside against religion published in … [Read More]

Every so often, someone in the Bush Administration actually makes a sensible point, though often not in the manner they intend.  Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, before jetting off to the Caucasus (an area that makes the Balkans look friendly), stated that the Administration’s “message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the … [Read More]

One of the most accurate assessments ever offered by a government official came when FCC chairman Newton Minow’s described television as a “vast wasteland,” a depiction that has, generally speaking, grown only more accurate since Minow spoke those words in 1961. Today, most programs on television are either vapid or subversive of traditional values—or sometimes both. Rare indeed have been programs … [Read More]

The latest validation of James Burnham’s insight that “liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide” comes from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.  As the Daily Mail reported recently, Dr. Williams wrote an irenic letter to Moslem leaders in which he wrote that the doctrine of the Trinity “is difficult, sometimes offensive” to Moslems and in which he also apologized for … [Read More]

Victor Davis Hanson has taken umbrage at Pat Buchanan’s description of him as “the court historian of the neoconservatives,” and even more umbrage at Buchanan’s book.  Unfortunately for Hanson, Buchanan’s description of Hanson is accurate, and Hanson’s review of Buchanan’s book shows all the care and intelligence we have come to expect from one of the biggest cheerleaders for Bush’s disastrous … [Read More]

In response to my recent piece on science and religion, one of the commenters, GM, took me to task:  “you may want to consider and ask why atheists seem angry.  There’s no indication that you understand why.”  I have to confess, GM was right:  I do not understand why some atheists are so angry. I have no trouble understanding that some … [Read More]

Ben Stein’s movie Expelled has generated lots of commentary, most of it negative.  Many have claimed that it is obscurantist and hostile to science, a veritable first shot in a wider war against knowledge.  Despite employing the same type of techniques that garnered Michael Moore an Oscar (and much critical acclaim), it has a 9% positive rating at rottentomatoes.com, the sort … [Read More]

Last week at NRO, cub reporter Stephen Spruiell announced that he had found what might be “the most deceptive ad” of the 2008 race, a Barack Obama spot blaming free trade for job losses at the Delphi plant in Warren, Ohio. According to Spruiell, the ad was deceptive because “foreign competition did not drive the company to eliminate American jobs” and … [Read More]

It is fitting that one of the signal events of what will likely become the second Bush recession has been the Federal Reserve’s propping up of the Wall Street firm Bear Stearns. For years, Wall Street has opposed any such bailouts of old-line manufacturing firms being swept away by the tsunami of free trade, and has applauded as employers have cut … [Read More]