Well, however tonight turns out it appears Rick Santorum is being given his chance. I particularly liked the analogy that makes the boyish Santorum Luke Skywalker, but whether the X-Wing takes down the well-coiffed Death Star Santorum’s doggedness and convictions appear to be paying off. And for those of you who comment at FrumForum even David Brooks is now on board! Only   more

Vaclav Havel has died. I did not spend time on his plays but read his essays avidly. He was a great hero of the free. One of the things I admired about him, as noted in this piece, is his disregard for his own crowd’s leftist pieties. He never ceased to criticize Castro and Cuba for the elimination   more

I have not commented on the recent Tom Edsall piece on the Democrats abandoning the white working class but Michael Barone does so here. An interesting nugget in that article is that Obama won a greater share of the vote than all but three Democratic Presidents but:
[H]e did it without capturing the vast middle of the   more

Ok Axelrod, whatever the Mormon Mitt Romney may be, it’s not a member of a Martini Party.  more

Walter Russell Meade captures something about the current moment that can be overlooked to easily. Ron Paul and Barack Obama are forces for Americas that don’t and can’t exist anymore. The America where 90% of the people farm is not coming back.
But less acknowledged is that the post-war America that dominated manufacturing, could spend on social   more

Here is an update my article on Catholic University and same-sex dorms.
Via Ed Whalen at Bench Memos I have learned that the D.C. Human Rights Commission has rejected the claim that Catholic University can not have same-sex dorms. While not the last word on the law the DCHR is highly influential in the DC Courts on   more

Well the punditry has pretty much come down to determining that Republican choices are Gingrich or Romney. Here’s the big Kahuna of Conservative Commentary on that very subject.
In my quest to avoid voting for Romney I have pretty much picked through the remainders of announced candidates this year. In that piece I ruled out Perry   more

The head of a major union lauding a model where striking gets you shot?
Lord I miss George Meaney and Lane Kirkland.  more

Michael Barone points out the three big tax deductions which are hard to eliminate: the charitable deduction, the home mortgage interest deduction, and the state and local tax deduction.
I agree with him that elimination of the charitable deduction is wrong for Republicans. Home mortgage deductions could be eliminated for loans over $500,000 without eliminating middle class home   more

It was November 1994. I was in Greece at the Temple of Delphi. As I walked the grounds of the ancient pagan oracle I saw a news kiosk. Approaching it, I spied the International Herald Tribune. Across its pages was the monumental news that after 50 years the Republicans had taken the House!
I vaulted into the   more

Anarchy is not good for anyone. One of the joys of the “Occupy Wherever” movement is the swift return of the Gods of the Copybook Headings to wreak divine wrath on its most clueless transgressors.
The wrath includes the return of tuberculosis-the scourge of the 19th century; scrofula from the middle ages, and violence and mayhem from   more

Judge Silberman has issued another tour de force in the extremely interesting opinions generated by Obamacare. I have noted other opinions on Obamacare’s constitutionality but this one is full of interesting tidbits.
The first and most interesting tidbit is who wrote it. The Honorable Laurence H. Silberman is no hippie.  more

Well, I still don’t have a candidate. Herman Cain’s not the guy. His weaknesses now outweigh his advantages. Just as I never disliked Sarah Palin and actually loved it when she was announced as the Vice Presidential pick by John McCain, I have never disliked Herman Cain. But for similar reasons I have to say   more

About those Herman Cain settlements:
I defended these kinds of suits in the 1990s. Keep in mind that discrimination lawsuits are an exception to the usual American rule that each side pays its own legal fees. If an employer loses a discrimination suit, the employer routinely pays the attorney fees of the Plaintiff. That creates unusual incentives to   more

I have praised President Obama’s willingness to kill our enemies but his refusal to support our friends may be the undoing of the Middle East. I have spent a few days reading articles and cogitating on the announcement that we are leaving Iraq at the end of the year.
There are a few strains of thought   more

David has made what I think is an interesting analogy about abortion but I think follows the wrong path. He has taken lumps on comparing drink to feticide but the main point needs to be addressed, is abortion comparable to drink or to slavery?
David says we won’t have a war over abortion which I think and   more

“Vene, Vidi, Mori”  Forgive the mangled Latin in both tense and person. Hilary Clinton’s delighted expression yesterday that “We came, We saw, He died,” echoing Caesar, delighted me. It is time for conservatives and Republicans to follow Pete Wehner at Commentary and begin praising Nobel Peace Prize recipient Barack Hussein Obama for his willingness to kill this country’s   more

Before being dragged kicking and screaming onto the Romney bandwagon (their motto is “Resistance is Futile-You Will Be Assimilated”) I am perusing the other choices. Lately Herman Cain is making a lot of waves and rising to the top of the polls.
His stalwart refusal to bone up on foreign policy is causing agitation in the   more

David manfully takes up the job of stirring enthusiasm for Mitt Romney as President. I was for Pawlenty before that became impossible. Now Perry has revealed himself to be another Republican politician who cannot talk. Worse, he seems to insult the base without knowing it. At least with Huntsman it’s a strategy.
I think David is factually wrong   more

One of the reasons I oppose liberalism is my general sense that all that is proposed as optional is shortly thereafter required. Now we can see reactionary liberalism striking again. George Washington law professor John Banzhaf is arguing that Catholic University’s decision to bring back same-sex dorms violates DC’s Human Rights Act.
Justice Antonin Scalia recently weighed   more