A recent West Point graduate, still serving in the U.S. Army, shocked admirers of the venerable American military academy with his candidly pro-Communist views. How could such an institution, founded on “duty, honor, country,” produce such a student? A junior Army officer who states his anti-American opinions so openly may seem novel, but
President Trump’s press conference in Puerto Rico made clear that whatever the island’s political designation may be, Puerto Ricans are Americans and he will act accordingly. The Commonwealth’s recovery—and not just from this hurricane—is part of the goal of making America great again. But the difficulties involved extend far beyond differences in political
“I’ve listened to countless speeches in this hall, but I can say this: None were bolder, none more courageous and forthright than the one delivered by President Trump today” –Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu The wisdom of President Trump’s United Nations speech last week was nothing less than a demonstration to that dubious
Following some elite campus visits with his daughter, the morose father lamented that one cannot simply opt out of college. Such a defiance of convention did not seem feasible socially or economically. Like all men of sense, he is among those flabbergasted by former Princeton President Woodrow Wilson’s eagerness to make his students
Amid the turbulence of the past few weeks, it has been President Trump who has kept his head while others have lost theirs. Trump may be the one man in America who can detoxify racial relations—I mean actually do it, not exploit them in the mode of Black Lives Matter or Al Sharpton.
Recent events invite me to recall my Nazi student. Back in the late 1970s I taught college extension courses at military bases in the Pacific Northwest. I had some outstanding students, one of whom is still in touch with me and gives me lessons on close reading of political texts. One went to
PISTOL ….Well, bawd I'll turn, And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand. To England will I steal, and there I'll steal: And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars, And swear I got them in the Gallia wars. “Henry V” (v.i.88-92) In Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” Pistol and his late lamented
Legal fireworks concerning religious freedom exploded in what some commentators hailed as the most important case of the term, Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, decided a week before July 4. Though it’s hard to tell for all the squabbling over the meaning of precedents, the justices’ opinions point to the great themes of
About a year ago, the respected Harvard political theorist, Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., wrote an op-ed about Donald Trump for the Wall Street Journal titled, “Why Donald Trump Is No Gentleman.” Mansfield made the case that the appellation “gentleman” is one used so rarely these days that we forget, even, to note its
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has made a much-heralded case for removal of four Confederate monuments he suddenly found the cause of great evils. “The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity,” he observes. But he arrogantly concludes that now we can “make straight a wrong turn we made many
