R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. from Creators Syndicate

Meet the Gaffable Barack Obama for 05/29/2008

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — As I noted several weeks back, some very bizarre happenings began to haunt the Obama campaign in April. The candidate — taking his breakfast in a Scranton, Pa., eatery — was asked by a reporter for his reaction to a meeting former President Jimmy Carter had just concluded with a thug from Hamas. Clearly annoyed, Sen. Barack Obama refused to answer the question. In ...

Updated: Thu May 29, 2008

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Bill Clinton Aroused for 06/05/2008

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The other day, an aroused Bill Clinton addressed a female reporter in South Dakota, shouting a word into her face that the "Dictionary of American Slang" labels "Taboo." As the reporter recorded it, Boy Clinton was "tightly gripping" her hand and "refusing to let it go." What had aroused him was a story in Vanity Fair that chronicles th ...

Updated: Thu Jun 05, 2008

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McCain's Achievement for 06/12/2008

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Think of it! Since early 2007, ambitious politicians have cluttered up the news with their campaigns for the presidency. Giants, such as Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson, have tantalized us with the possibility that America could, under their leadership, become the new Athens. Finally, three months ago, the field was reduced to three candidates, and now it is do ...

Updated: Thu Jun 12, 2008

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Bush Over Truman for 06/19/2008

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The stature and repute of our public figures are shaped, as I have written before, by this thing called Kultursmog . It is our political culture, a kultur utterly polluted by politics, left-liberal politics. For instance, it renders the Clintons, as reporter John F. Harris hymned in a recent hagiography, "the two most important political figures of t ...

Updated: Thu Jun 19, 2008

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Tracing the Roots of Environmentalism for 06/26/2008

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

SARLAT, France — I have journeyed to the south of France to continue my research into the earliest ancestors of America's present-day political exotics. The American scene abounds with bizarre creatures: feminists, militant advocates of identity politics, environmentalist wackos (as Rush Limbaugh's millions call them). I came here to investigate the life of the 12th-century troubadour Ber ...

Updated: Thu Jun 26, 2008

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Clinton and I at Georgetown for 07/03/2008

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

LONDON — I am in London preparing a couple of talks on politics that I am to give this week, and I have made a very unhappy discovery. A new book, written by a promising young American historian, reveals a secret about Bill Clinton and me that we have kept from the public for four decades. In "The Pact," a book that follows the strikingly similar careers of Bill Clinton and Newt ...

Updated: Thu Jul 03, 2008

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Health Care From Adam Smith for 07/10/2008

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — I am back from travels in old Europe and have survived in the pink. Readers of this column will recall that during the past three weeks, I have been traveling through France and England. Add Scotland to the pilgrimage. In Edinburgh last weekend, I participated in the unveiling of an Adam Smith statue, prominently placed near the top of the famous city's Royal Mile. Smith now ...

Updated: Thu Jul 10, 2008

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The Prophet Obama -- Not Funny for 07/17/2008

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — As I suggested a few weeks ago, Sen. Barack H. Obama is not going to have an easy time of it. For one thing, Sen. John McCain is a much tougher candidate than has been suspected. Looking over his career, one will note that McCain learned politics before ever entering politics. As a young Navy liaison to the Senate in the 1970s, he worked effectively with Democratic and Republ ...

Updated: Thu Jul 17, 2008

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A Victory for Campus Diversity for 07/24/2008

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Something very good has just taken place on a college campus. After a two-year ordeal orchestrated by a group of mutinous faculty members, the Ave Maria School of Law has been given a clean bill of health by the American Bar Association and can continue with its work. I spoke on the campus last autumn and departed burdened by gloom. I feared the mutineers might win. They were ...

Updated: Thu Jul 24, 2008

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Summer Reading for 07/31/2008

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — It is vacation time, and this summer millions of Americans are going to take breaks from their daily toils. Many will seek out quiet spots to relax with family members. They will head to the beach or to campsites, and some will defy gas prices and head for the open road. The summer vacation is a perfect time to read a book, possibly two books. There are all kinds of books ava ...

Updated: Thu Jul 31, 2008

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My Olympic Boycott Hardens for 08/07/2008

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — I see that the Olympic Games are taking place again. Nonetheless, the boycott that I slapped on them a couple of decades back remains in effect. I shall not watch them voluntarily. Perhaps I shall be passing through a room where the games are being boomed and blathered, but I shall avert my gaze.

Admittedly, the games have suffered no setback since my boycott began. In ...

Updated: Thu Aug 07, 2008

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In Michael Phelps' Skin for 08/14/2008

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Co-written by Alan B. Somers

WASHINGTON — After decades as ardent fans of Grand Prix racing and international swimming competition, we have come to the conclusion that in both, sports engineering has become more important than the competitors. In Grand Prix driving, it is not surprising that engineering has come to overshadow the talent and gallantry of the drivers. Auto races have ...

Updated: Thu Aug 14, 2008

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Another Obama Emerges for 08/21/2008

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — It has been a mixed week for Sen. Barack H. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. On the one hand, a Reuters/Zogby poll announced that the junior senator from Illinois' 7-point lead over Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, has dissolved into a 5-point deficit. McCain now leads him 46 to 41 percent. On the other hand, the me ...

Updated: Thu Aug 21, 2008

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Hillary Was Born To Lose for 08/28/2008

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — I believe I made a mistake when I decided not to attend the Democratic National Convention. The consequence of that decision has been that I have had to watch its highlights on national television. There the media gaggle, with few exceptions, plangently has repeated — tediously and cheerlessly — many things that I know to be untrue. The pre-eminent untruth resound ...

Updated: Thu Aug 28, 2008

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Hypocrisy in the Kultursmog for 09/04/2008

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — In this election year, "change" has been the catnip of the liberals. It renders them blissful. Change will put an end to the dominance of American politics by the "Washington insiders." And the instrumentality of that "change" will be a first-term senator of unassailable probity, Sen. Barack H. Obama, who curiously enough began his career a decad ...

Updated: Thu Sep 04, 2008

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The Democrats' Depression for 09/11/2008

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The campaigning politicians apparently cannot talk accurately about the economy. As I am not campaigning for anything, let me try to describe the economy as it is. The Democrats cannot talk accurately because if they did, the average American would realize that the economy under President George W. Bush has not been so bad. Furthermore, the Democrats have not a clue as to how ...

Updated: Thu Sep 11, 2008

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Offshore Sham for 09/18/2008

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — The other night, when House Democrats appeared to reverse their long-standing ban on offshore oil drilling, the electorate was hoodwinked again. At least, the Democratic leadership hoped the electorate was hoodwinked.

In August, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was beginning to feel the heat from a citizenry angered by high energy prices, particularly high gasoline prices. Republi ...

Updated: Thu Sep 18, 2008

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The Taranto Principle Examined for 09/25/2008

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Years from now in journalism schools, they will call it the "Taranto Principle." At least, that is what they will call it if they still have journalism schools years from now. In the future, the great republic may only have blog schools, those being schools where students are taught to sit in their underwear in front of their luminescent laptops and pound out semili ...

Updated: Thu Sep 25, 2008

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Tom Wolfe Explains Obama's Rise for 10/02/2008

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — Tom Wolfe, the eminent novelist and sociologist, has a theory that explains what the Democrats are doing to themselves and on Nov. 4 will do to the country. What they are doing is bringing to the presidency, in a time of war and financial crisis, a total novice. That would be Sen. Barack H. Obama. Oh, yes, and his running mate is Sen. Joe Biden, a total airhead.

Recent ...

Updated: Thu Oct 02, 2008

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Palin vs. Biden for 10/09/2008

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

WASHINGTON — How is it that an attractive woman who has been involved in state and local government since the early 1990s without much controversy is passed off in the media now as an airhead? Yet her opponent — long known as an airhead, a braggart and even a plagiarist — now is passed off as a statesman? I have in mind Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware ...

Updated: Thu Oct 09, 2008

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