The American Spectator

February 2011

Features

• Liberalism Is Dead

  An intellectual autopsy of the movement. 

  R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

• Is Liberalism Dead?

  No, not yet, not so long as it has the run of government and the programs it created to keep itself in power.

  James Piereson

• The Decline of Liberalism

  A history of past greatness at home and abroad, and, since 1960, of growing weakness, hubris, and failure. 

  Conrad Black

• The California Green Debauch

  What was once the indispensable state is now an asylum of decline that threatens to drag the rest of America down with it. 

  George Gilder

• Whacking Anwar

  Should a U.S. president be ordering the assassination of a U.S. citizen-turned-terrorist? 

  Jed Babbin

Note From the Publisher

• Unwanted: Dead or Alive

  Alfred S. Regnery

Freedom Watch

• Unleashing the Freedom to Prosper

  What’s making Puerto Rico special?

  Luis G. Fortuño

The Continuing Crisis

• The Continuing Crisis

  R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

The Tax and Spend Spectator

• Spend Rifts

   A new addition to the Reagan Republican list of non-negotiables.

  Grover G. Norquist

The Congressional Spectator

• The Democrats’ Left Turn

  The survivors of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid wreck are more liberal than ever before.

  W. James Antle, III

The Pursuit of Knowledge

• Measure for Measure

  Old weights and measures have lasted in America because they grew from the free transactions between people.

  Roger Scruton

With the Tea Partiers

• The Real Movement

  Despite what you might have been told, the Tea Party movement is not about national groups based in Washington, D.C. or those who arbitarily claim to be its national leaders.

  Ned Ryun

Capitol Ideas

• Culture versus Economy

  Conservatives prevail when the economy is the issue — but not when it comes to what used to be called “social issues.”

  Tom Bethell

Presswatch

• Whiplash!

  James Taranto

Letter From Paris

• The Dark Side of the Enlightenment

  Atheism was especially chic in 18th century Paris.

  Joseph A. Harriss

Politics

• There They Went Again

  John H. Fund

High Spirits

• A Grateful Heart

  Americans are profuse in their politeness of thanking everyone for everything. But there’s more to it than that.

  Jonathan Aitken

Ben Stein's Diary

• Fleeting Beauty

  It’s always something.

  Ben Stein

Conservative Tastes

• Taking “Offense”

  Not that anyone is shocked anymore, but the transgressive crowd which aims to shock gets upset if someone is actually shocked by their productions.

  James Bowman

Buy the Book

• A Gentle Man

  Don’t bet against the unexpected pope from Bavaria.

  Matthew Kenefick

• The Heart of Dimness

  V.S. Naipaul has a problem, and the problem’s name is God.

  Aram Bakshian, Jr.

• Poured Concrete for the Soul

  Why are we now not surprised when architecture is ugly and inhuman? Nancy Pearcey offers answers to this and many other questions about our aggressively secular age.

  
  

  Dan Peterson

• An American Hero Remembered

  David Eisenhower’s excellent and incisive memoir of his grandfather.

  John R. Coyne, Jr.

Current Wisdom

• Current Wisdom

  Assorted Jackasses

Last Call

• Angry Birds

  Alfred Hitchcock never had to deal with Baptist church signs.

  Joseph Lawler