In "That Time of Year," Garrison Keillor engagingly tells his tale as a shy, awkward writer who found fame and fortune almost by accident as a radio personality. That fame and fortune might have ruined him, but it didn’t. Humor, it seems, has helped him more than once—and more than a little. That Time of [...]
The progressive left seems to want us to become something akin to social democratic Europe with all its cultural trimmings, while the right wants us to remain more like the America of old. To satisfy both parties, is the answer for the United States of America to become like the Europe of old? Just where [...]
The electoral college has at least indirectly done its work by helping to assure that a successful presidential candidate would have broad support throughout the country, as opposed to simply being the overwhelming choice of only a section/slice of the country. The 2016 election of Donald Trump put many things in motion. The 2020 election [...]
During this “age of the mask,” are we on the verge of becoming a people who ritualistically carry masks with us wherever we go? Will it perhaps become generally understood that the wise person always keeps two masks with him at all times? Now that we have seemingly settled into the “age of the mask,” [...]
If it’s time to “defund” the police department of Minneapolis, maybe it’s also time to “defund” the K-12 sector of what passes for public education in Minnesota. The idea is to fund parents instead. The radical idea of school choice will directly empower parents, which is something that defunding the police will not do. In [...]
A recent commentary suggests that American exceptionalism has been shattered by the COVID-19 crisis. If we are indeed left “shattered” and “battered” by a mere virus and our response to it, the rest of the world may one day wish that an exceptional America was still on hand to deal with forces seeking to do [...]
As we all deal with the latest pandemic, it’s good to know that we can call on experts to help us through—and eventually out—of it. But it’s also good to know that we can also call on non-experts to help us as well. Included among them might even be a non-expert who had his suspicions [...]
Are we a less free people, maybe even a far less free people, than we were in 1963? Partial punch-puller that he is content to be, Christopher Caldwell is not about to offer either a tentative or final answer to such questions. But the evidence that he presents strongly suggests that we are certainly a [...]
Today’s enthusiasts for a socialist America will not be likely to know the name of Robert Blatchford or his story. If they did, they might think twice about their current enthusiasm. […]
Conventional wisdom has it that the 2020 election will be a referendum on Donald Trump. Perhaps so. But the result could also prove to be a referendum on something ultimately much more important than Mr. Trump. A Trump victory—or a Trump defeat—could prove to be a referendum on the larger phenomenon of modern progressivism. [...]
Will a Sanders-like agenda produce eventual Democratic success at the polls? Maybe so or maybe not. Either way, it could lead to the achievement of Senator Sanders’ cherished goal of an American Sweden. While Senator Bernie Sanders may never be president, his oft-stated goal may one day be realized. This is especially so, if his [...]
George Kennan was—and remains—an important, even compelling, figure in the early history of the Cold War. But these selections from his diaries reveal him to have been something other than what this honest and calm, but not always detached and cool, professional diplomat took himself to be. The Kennan Diaries, edited by Frank Costigliola (768 [...]
In “The Conservative Sensibility,” George Will posits that taming the administrative state and restoring the principles of the American Founding is the great American political project of the 21st century. But is the country up to the task? The Conservative Sensibility, by George F. Will (640 pages, Hachette Books, 2019) If prudence is a virtue [...]
Can there be such a thing as a great Catholic university, if greatness is defined as Princeton and Harvard and Yale—and Fr. Hesburgh—would define it? Probably not. Fr. Hesburgh failed to achieve the goal that he set for himself, while succeeding greatly at something that he did not set out to do. American Priest: The [...]