Am. History & Culture
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Frank Rich on Palin
The crowds lining up in the cold for her book tour are likely to be the most motivated to line up at the polls in G.O.P. primaries. They don’t speak the same language as Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michael Steele, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or, for that matter, McCain. They are more likely to heed Palin
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Disease in Remission
For the life of me I don't know why anybody serious is obsessing so much about Sarah Palin this week. This piece by Sullivan is simply silly. As if the future of the nation hinges on exposing what everybody with half a brain already knows.Honestly, who cares and why feed this media frenzy with a
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You Got a Better Explanation?
The Owners are like monkeys whose hand gets stuck in the jar because it won’t let go of the banana. Iraq and Afghanistan are the jar. No way the owners are letting go of that banana, and this refusal to be sane will–already has–hurt us more than the attack on the twin towers ever did.…
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Gay Marriage vs. Civil Unions (Updated)
Maine got all the attention, but It's interesting to me that Washington State voters supported a bill popularly known as the "Everything but Marriage Act" that gives gay couples all the civil rights of marriage without calling it marriage. Maybe there's a lesson in that. Maybe gay activists should let conservatives have the word 'marriage'
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NY 23: Signs of the Times
The right’s embrace of Hoffman is a double-barreled suicide for the G.O.P. On Saturday, the battered Scozzafava suspended her campaign, further scrambling the race. It’s still conceivable that the Democratic candidate could capture a seat the Republicans should own. But it’s even better for Democrats if Hoffman wins. Punch-drunk with this triumph, the right will
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Futile Culture Wars
I’m with Barzun. The West is decadent. Decadence happens, and like winter it’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just a time that doesn’t have much exterior spiritual energy anymore–the spirit has gone underground, so to speak, into the soul’s interior. And since the whole movement of salvation history has been a movement from outer…
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Quote of the Day: Andrew Bacevich
If the Afghan war then becomes the consuming issue of Obama’s presidency – as Iraq became for his predecessor, as Vietnam did for Lyndon Johnson, and as Korea did for Harry Truman – the inevitable effect will be to compromise the prospects of reform more broadly. At home and abroad, the president who advertised himself
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More on the Balance between Liberty and Equality
I've been thinking a lot about why this country almost broke apart in the 1860s, and why it's a good thing it didn't, and why the secessionist mentality lingers now as a destructive force in this country. In a globalizing world, the secessionist mentality is analogous to the adolescent who eats his dinner in his
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Zombie Conservatism
Sullivan and Dreher are catching on, so to speak, to my trope about "Zombie Traditionalism". For a more in-depth look, check my 2005 posts on this theme here, here, and here. See also "Dying Traditions."