America’s elites are suffering. You hear it in the frenzied efforts of “responsible” conservatives like Charles “Donald Trump’s Fantasy of Mass Deportation Is Political Poison for the GOP” Krauthammer, Fred “Donald Trump’s Nativist Bandwagon” Hiatt, and George “Trump’s immigration plan could spell doom for the GOP” Will to convince their fellow conservatives to listen to…
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It’s starting to look a lot like Rubio, Part II
A month or two ago I was about to write a post with the awkward title of “It’s starting to look a lot like Rubio—Not!” because my original post appeared to be overtaken by events, as we say in the biz. Sen. Rubio was struggling, while Jeb Bush was sitting on a mountain of cash….
Donald Trump or Donald Paul?
Lately, a few percipient observers, including myself have remarked that Bernie Sanders has been sounding just a bit Trumpy on the subjects of immigration and international competitiveness. Now, it seems, Donald Trump has been sounding a bit Rand Pauly on the Middle East. Bloomberg Politic’s Melinda Henneberger reports on the scene with the Donald at…
Bernie Sanders or Bernie Trump?
Is Bernie Sanders squishy on immigration by accident or is he squishy on purpose? I guess it depends on what your definition of “squishy” is. Elise Foley and Daniel Marans at the Huffington Post give a rundown on Bernie’s recent comments, in which he’s both pushed for a path to naturalization for the millions of…
Edward Gibbon, Part VII
In Part I of this near-random collection of jottings, I remarked that Edward Gibbon, despite his near-obsessive concern with politeness and polish, tells you more about the sex lives of historical figures than virtually any modern historian. I also remarked that his modern-day fans, despite their frequently amazing levels of erudition and enthusiasm, studiously avoid…
John Lewis Gaddis—“They Really Believed That Shit!”
Way back in 1978, a dude named John Lewis Gaddis started in his academic career by publishing Russia, the Soviet Union and the United States: An Interpretive History (America & the World), which looked at U.S./Russian relationships from the time of Catherine the Great to Jimmy and Leonid. John probably expected to spend his life…
The Pentagon’s Short- and Long-Term Memory Loss
In a story appearing in Politico, “Obama team split over next steps with Iran”, Michael Crowley writes that a “senior administration official” denied that there was any possibility of a presidential visit to Iran—“we continue to have very serious differences with Iran.” Crowley remarks that “That sentiment will be appreciated by military officials who hold…
Is the South finally going to look in the mirror? Well, which South do you mean?
Back in the day—way, way back in the day—in 1953, the day of McCarthy, as a matter of fact—southern historian C. Vann Woodword published a famous article, “The Irony of Southern History,” which began as follows: “In a time when nationalism sweeps everything else before it, as it does at present, the regional historian is…
Pseudo New Yorker
Legal humor here “The rain does fall on the just and the unjust alike. For the immaculately coifed, things are a little different.” “Hey, hey, Mr. Skeptical Environmentalist! Wet enough for you?” “Okay, ‘It always rains on the unloved’ is a saying. You know who said it? Charlie Brown. Do you want your psyche to…
Good Court, Bad Court
The U.S. Supreme Court decided, rightly, in my opinion, that the statutory construction given the Affordable Care Act by the Obama Administration is consistent with the overall intent, if not the letter, of the act. The Court also decided, wrongly, in my opinion, that homosexuals have a constitutional right to marry. Both decisions were quite…