Spin the magic wheel: click, click, click, click, click—click—click: Ukraine! We’re all going to Ukraine! Another week, another pseudo-scandal fomented by anonymous anti-Trump actors in the “intelligence community” and fanned into attention-grabbing headlines by an impatient, irresponsible press. Can anyone keep them all straight? They rise like noxious bubbles from the cauldron of deep-state anti-Trump
I was going to pass by in silent contempt the news that CNN—the network that patrons of airport lounges cordially dislike and that no one else watches—just decided to hire disgraced former FBI honcho Andrew McCabe as a commentator. He’ll fit right in, I thought, with other such mountebanks barking against Donald Trump not only
One of the great difficulties in perfecting technologies like radar and sonar revolves around the problem of distinguishing accurately between noise and the real McCoy. Is that an enemy bomber or missile out there, or is it just a flock of birds? Donald Trump presents his opponents, and even some of his friends, with a
Since I am writing on Bastille Day, I am prompted to wonder why the French—or anyone else, for that matter—celebrate this infamous date. After all, the “storming” of that royal keep in 1789 was the spark that started the conflagration of the French Revolution. Unlike the American Revolution, in which the rule of
Remember Charles Reich? Probably not. But you probably do know the phrase “the greening of America.” It is Reich’s coinage, the title his fruity 1970 bestseller that began life as a 39,000-word essay in The New Yorker. I hadn’t thought about Reich for years. When the news came a few days ago that
Perhaps the most amusing intramural intellectual squall on the Right these past few days has centered on “Against David French-ism,” Sohrab Ahmari’s recent polemical reflection on liberalism in First Things. I did not think that Sohrab had all that much to say directly about the man who provided him with the title of
During the Japanese bombardment of Shanghai in 1932, the Austrian essayist Karl Kraus was anguishing over the placement of commas in a column. It might seem futile at such a moment, he told a friend, but “if those who are obliged to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place,
Looking around the cultural landscape today, I conclude that we are in the midst of a sort of negative religious revival: let’s call it America’s First Great Awokening. Evidence of our society’s wokeness—a false awakening sparked by political grievance—is all around. I’d like to begin with what the philosopher Nicholas of Cusa called
