I’ve done my share of Times-bashing on the climate change issue, so it’s a pleasure to see a thoughtful and sensible piece by Times writer Andrew Revkin.  Unfortunately it’s on the web rather than in the print edition where it might do more good, but Revkin makes some strong points in a post that is [...]

The two most successful African-American politicians in recent New York history are on the ropes.  David Paterson, the first African-American governor in the history of the Empire State, is being driven from office by wave after wave of allegations.  Charles Rangel, the most colorful New York politician since Adam Clayton Powell, and the most powerful [...]

This observation, famously made by Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna as the powers debated the fate of the turncoat King of Saxony, reminded the crowned heads of Europe that all of them had at one time or another worked with Napoleon.  Talleyrand himself had served the emperor as foreign minister and trusted ally before [...]

Recently, on a trip to Washington, D.C., I stopped by the offices of The American Interest and sat down to discuss the Tea Party movement in the context of historical American populism, something I wrote about in my recent post, “Do Soldiers Drink Tea?“. Here it is:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
(You can also [...]

The modern Democratic Party was formed out of four previously antagonistic elements in American society: urban working class and immigrant whites, Southern whites, African-Americans and upper middle class progressive reformers.  It began to take shape when Woodrow Wilson brought progressives into the mainstream of the Democratic Party; Franklin Roosevelt put all the pieces together when [...]

The Gallup organization has come out with yet another poll showing that Americans by an overwhelming percentage sympathize with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians.  This time, the pro-Israel sentiment is at a near record level: 63 percent of those asked said their sympathies lie more with Israel, 23 percent said both or neither, and [...]

A report from the Pew Research Center out this morning isn’t getting huge play in the press, but it offers a much bigger clue to the shape of our future than anything you will read on the front page of today’s New York Times.
The report is on public attitudes toward unions, and it finds that [...]

President Jimmy Carter, and his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, have both taken issue with my recent article in Foreign Policy about Obama’s Jeffersonian and Wilsonian foreign policy impulses, entitled “The Carter Syndrome.”

As I said in my reply, my  “article was not really about Carter or his administration. It was about the current U.S. president and [...]

At the tea parties here in glamorous Queens we make sure we serve genuine Devonshire clotted cream with the scones and we keep our pinkies carefully extended while lifting the delicate porcelain cups to our lips, but a very different kind of Tea Party has my friends in the upscale media and policy worlds gravely [...]

The meltdown of the climate change movement is entering a new phase as the European left turns on the UN climate change office and the IPCC.
The German left wing press, one of the world’s strongest supporters of the ‘climate change movement’ is turning against the scientists and UN bureaucrats responsible for leading the movement.  A [...]

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church.  As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in [...]

The Washington Post this morning has a strong story on the collapse of the movement to stop climate change through a binding treaty negotiated under UN auspices.  And even the normally taciturn New York Times is admitting that the resignation of the top UN climate change negotiator suggests that no global treaty will be coming [...]

Some readers (like Michael Barone) were skeptical when I wrote about the coming technological revolution in American medicine and hailed it as our one chance for the kind of health care Americans really want (better, cheaper and more abundant than what we now have).
But here’s a story from the New York Times that suggests that [...]

An editorial in today’s New York Times acknowledges something that everybody who doesn’t read the Times has known for several weeks now: sloppy work by climate scientists and the IPCC has severely dented public confidence in climate science generally, and has undermined the political prospects for government action on the issue.
Climate skeptics won’t be happy [...]

Two stories this morning cast some light on where the country is headed.  The news isn’t good for the upper middle class.  If you are, or you plan to be, a lawyer, a tenured university professor, a manager, an architect, a civil servant or a doctor, be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.
The bell is tolling [...]