With the approach of the 2020 presidential election season, much of the media is now promoting the most pessimistic spin possible on the findings of a recent — and methodologically questionable — NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. With headlines like…
In a July 18 op-ed for USA Today, Marine Corps veteran and former talk show host Montel Williams did his best to raise the temperature — but not the intelligence quotient — of public discourse by declaring racism the Republican platform…
How important is the distinction between nationalism and patriotism? Could it be that this distinction might be all that stands between Steve Bannon and political power? It may seem too slender a distinction, too thin a thread, to matter so…
John McCain’s exit from life and politics has commentators of all sorts falling into interpretive contortions. “I opposed him, but…” “I liked him in spite of…” It was McCain’s gift, springing from personality and life experiences, to antagonize and enrapture,…
It would be easy to despair these days as the various precincts of the America-Is-Awful brigade seem to command the heights of contemporary culture, and any gesture of patriotism or love of country is ruled out of order by the…
During his long and distinguished career as a broadcaster, Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers (of both the Brooklyn and L.A. versions) for sixty-plus years, almost never said anything even remotely political. But those who listened to him over…
By now, alert observers of the passing public scene have gotten used to language as well as principles being battered in the political process. Along the way, not only is freedom lost, but often coherence as well. The contest in…
A few days ago, I was in a small but cheerful hotel room in downtown Chicago. I had just flown in from L.A. and had dinner with John Coyne, a dear friend from Nixon days, so I was in a…
What do Dallas Police Chief David Brown and Sleepy Hollow’s satirst Washington Irving have in common? Not much you might think. After all, 200 years separate their lives. Dallas Police Chief David Brown became a nationally known leader who showed…