Matthew Walther

Well, that’s no good. On Facebook, Sanford is blaming his legal troubles. When I say “blaming,” I mean writing at the cringe-inducing length of well over two thousand words. I remember when things were looking up for the old boy….

As Tim Stanley pointed out over at the Telegraph, it’s hard not to do so. When Pope John XXIII died in 1963, Paisley assured a group of protestors that “This Romish man of sin is now in hell.” “De mortuis nil nisi bonum”…

No comment from me. Just watch. 

Is Bradley Manning suffering from vaginal dryness? Is his hair thinning out? Are his breasts getting smaller while his tummy swells like a gourd? How regular are his periods? What about his personality: is he behaving shrewishly toward his jailers…

I’ve complained here before about seeing my second favorite novelist referred to as a “Victorian.” This howler has been popping up less and less of late. (No credit due here, of course: people probably just started using Wikipedia….) But now…

It certainly looks that way. The other night I was reading my galley copy of Adam Kirsch’s forthcoming essay collection, Rocket and Lightship. It’s full of good stuff, but the best piece in it is about the Slovenian Marxist gadfly Slavoj…

I was encouraged this morning to read Gavin Mueller’s delirious response on the website of Jacobin magazine to The American Spectator’s June cover story. (“Response” isn’t the right word here. Mueller clearly hasn’t read the piece, James Piereson’s serious-minded review…

For most of history, Thomas Piketty explains, the return on the value of land has exceeded economic growth, which helps explain why Victorian characters like Mr. Darcy seem so effortlessly wealthy….So this is in almost every Victorian novel. From Jane…

Samuel Alito is wearing a numberless Philadelphia Phillies uniform, standing next to Phillies legend Richie Ashburn, the hittingest batter of the ’50s and a childhood hero of his. He looks happy. “Back when I was on the Court of Appeals,…