A look at Senator Kerry’s bleak record

By John Lovejoy / April 16, 2004

So far most of the analysis of the presidential race has focused on the record of President George W. Bush, but what of this other fellow, John Kerry? Even if one is inclined to dislike our President, one must measure him against the alternatives. Looking at Kerry as a person reveals him to be an...

The Left’s warped view of the war on terror

By John Lovejoy / April 2, 2004

Liberals want to put terrorism behind us, not by ending it, but by pretending it is no longer a concern. The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof argues that other matters are more important in the presidential race. John Kerry refuses to acknowledge the existence of a war on terror. Considering that liberals think the...

The left tries to reshape America for the worse

By John Lovejoy / March 2, 2004

Many Democratic politicians who call themselves Catholic hold the bizarre position of opposing abortion personally while fighting rabidly for its unconditional legality. That being the case, I feel less disingenuous with my position on gay marriage: while I support it personally, I do not believe it should be legalized. I accept all the standard arguments...

An image of America with Kerry at the helm

By John Lovejoy / February 27, 2004

In the mid-1930s, France was confronted with the rising threat of Nazi Germany. While France had the power to crush the incipient menace single handedly, it did not, preferring to wait until it had assistance from Britain or the U.S. As Hitler took one aggressive step after another, France responded with appeasement. They also built...

Well dressed “outed” conservatives swarm campus

By John Lovejoy / February 17, 2004

This quarter I have written harsh critiques of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark. For my troubles, I got to watch their campaigns circle the proverbial drains as John F-word Kerry cribbed their platforms. The only way Kerry can be stopped now is if, I don’t know, Democrats realize that Michael Dukakis’ former running mate has...

America an Israel ally against terror

By John Lovejoy / February 13, 2004

Conservatives support Israel because they want the United States to win the War on Islamofascist terror, just as we triumphed over similar enemies of freedom in the Cold War. To achieve victory, America needs reliable, like-minded friends to join the battle. No nation on earth fits this category more than Israel. We are both modern,...

Fiction in the style of Wesley Clark

By John Lovejoy / January 23, 2004

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Wesley Clark is nuttier than the candy bar that bears his name. For a man who had held himself up as a measured alternative to Howard Dean, he does not seem to me to be any less of a conspiracy-spinning, jabbering lunatic. Consider the past year. First Clark claimed...

Dean’s new piety poorly timed and insincere

By John Lovejoy / January 11, 2004

So, Howard Dean has decided to get religion, and just in time, too! With Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats looking increasingly likely to select him as their nominee, Dean is now concerned about the Super Tuesday primaries in the South. The feisty Yankee’s understanding of this vast, diverse region often seems drawn entirely from the...

The Shoreland is not worth saving

By John Lovejoy / November 6, 2003

The Shoreland is a dilapidated relic, and sinking more money into this albatross would be a mistake. This dorm has to close eventually, so the administration should use the city’s call for renovation as an opportunity to shut it down now, save the money, and build new housing. A small, vocal cadre of residents have...

Critique of terrorism study flawed

By John Lovejoy / October 16, 2003

Rafi Youatt’s critique of Robert Pape’s paper, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” suffers from a several flaws. Youatt suggests that Pape considers a suicide terror target’s regime type to be more important than the target’s status as a so-called occupier asking, “Is it specifically the liberal democratic character of the target states at stake,...

Conservatives’ criticism hurting Bush

By John Lovejoy / October 9, 2003

Liberals—whether vying for book sales or voters—savage President Bush at every turn, often with language far harsher than anything they reserve for, say, Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, many conservatives criticize the President for being too willing to compromise with the left. Since this disapproval is more civilized, and because it undermines the claim that Bush...

Examining the Arab Street

By John Lovejoy / April 21, 2003

Americans across the political spectrum obsess over convincing the Arab Street that we only want freedom and prosperity for them. They hold that demonstrating this will reduce Middle Eastern terrorism. This optimism is unfounded. No matter what the U.S. does to curry Arab favor, even totally disengaging from the region, the extremists will continue to...

Foreign aid fails to win friends

By John Lovejoy / February 25, 2003

Most people in this country take it as a given that foreign aid must be a component of the war on terrorism. “Drain the swamps,” is their rallying cry, as they reason that improving the standard of living for impoverished Muslims overseas will keep more of them from becoming terrorists. The swamp-drainers tacitly assume that...

A reluctant justification for war

By John Lovejoy / February 14, 2003

It’s not a matter of if but when we’re going to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has made it clear that Iraq’s refusal to cooperate makes invasion necessary, and barring a change of heart by Saddam Hussein, the bombs will start falling soon. Obviously this is deeply disturbing to many people. They must remember...

A defense of Bush’s policies

By John Lovejoy / January 31, 2003

Perhaps Josh Steinman can tell me whether he was purposely lying or simply unaware of many key facts when he scribbled his latest diatribe against George W. Bush. As one analyzes his arguments one at a time, one finds that in his zeal to denigrate the President, accuracy was not a watchword for Steinman. First,...

Three easy steps to an opinion

By John Lovejoy / January 21, 2003

“I would write for Viewpoints, I just need a topic that hasn’t already been beat to death.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from the various friends, acquaintances, and derelicts I routinely pester to contribute to this section. Frankly, I can see why people would think that. Iraq, Israel, affirmative action,...

We have axes of evil to grind

By John Lovejoy / January 14, 2003

Habitual critics of President Bush are fond of pointing out the discrepancy between his policies on Iraq and North Korea. They observe that Bush is edging the country closer to war with Iraq while taking a less aggressive track with North Korea. Since the two situations both involve rogue states developing nuclear, chemical, and biological...

Democratic party hopefuls

By John Lovejoy / January 10, 2003

Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and now Tom Daschle have all decided to sit out the next presidential election. At first this seems puzzling, since each of these three could have easily won their party’s nomination. The fact that none of them wanted it indicates what leading Democrats think about the odds of unseating President Bush...

Driving to disaster

By John Lovejoy / December 3, 2002

I spent a lot of time this past summer with my companion, Boxy Brown. Boxy Brown is, of course, my car–a brown 1988 Honda Accord with 280,000 miles on it (a moon-shot and change) that had come into my possession the previous summer. I find driving one of the great pleasures of life. After nine...

Confrontational style defended

By John Lovejoy / November 26, 2002

I write the way I do in the Maroon because it works. History has shown the confrontational style to be the best way to attract attention, stir those who agree with you to action, and persuade those undecided people who lack the time or inclination to learn all the facts and subtleties of an issue...

Liberals don’t get conservatism

By John Lovejoy / November 19, 2002

Apparently my column of two weeks ago (“Liberals need to listen,” November 5) made blood boil. I’m disappointed, because I was really hoping to incite a response like shaking of fists, or ideally, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The individual whose hemocytes I raised to such a tizzy, Igor Serbreyana, saw fit to respond to...

Enough about Campus Watch

By John Lovejoy / November 12, 2002

All summer I worked in a lab listening to National Public Radio. Every day it seemed one of the shows was devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Experts representing both sides would come on the show and proceed to disagree for the next hour. Every one of these shows was the same and after about a...

Right as usual

By John Lovejoy / November 5, 2002

I have elected to adopt a less confrontational tone in my column. This change is largely because my ignoble visage now accompanies my byline, and I am wary of my readers recognizing me on the street and pelting me with batteries and lemons. Therefore, this column is the first in a series in which I...

Cities create crass culture clash

By John Lovejoy / October 29, 2002

While riding a train to Washington from my home in Baltimore, a middle-aged man wearing sunglasses and a Winston cigarettes hat eased into the aisle seat next to me. After the train started moving again, he declared, “I’ll sure enough remember where I was last September 11…flying a plane into the World Trade Center, hah!”...

Right As Usual

By John Lovejoy / October 24, 2002

I want to set Iraq aside for now and address the inaccurate theorizing about postwar American history found in the responses of Joshua Nachowitz and James Liu to my column on Iraq. If my position on the Cold War is propaganda, why have Mikhail Gorbachev and his former foreign ministry officials given Ronald Reagan much...

Fashionable hypocrites

By John Lovejoy / October 21, 2002

Since the Vietnam War, it has been fashionable on college campuses and among many members of the international community to demand that America make morality and human rights, rather than self-interest, the basis of its foreign policy. The central dogma of these anti-war types is that it is wrong in all cases and circumstances for...

Why we should trust Bush

By John Lovejoy / October 14, 2002

For months I was equivocating on my position regarding war with Iraq, and when I got to school here, I thought it was a bad idea. Recently, though, I have decided to endorse whatever actions President Bush decides to take. What is the reason for this sudden change of heart? I have now realized that...

Aspiring Plato shares his philosophy

By John Lovejoy / May 9, 2002

John Lovejoy Viewpoints Staff It’s high time I confessed my lifelong ambition to be the Plato or possibly Hobbes of my day. You see, I want to be known by one name and have cheap busts of my head grace library shelves in prep schools throughout the land. To this end I have written the...

Review: “The War Against Cliché,” by Martin Amis

By John Lovejoy / April 8, 2002

Arrogance sparks resentment. And after ten acclaimed novels, Martin Amis has reason to be proud, but in The War Against Cliché he seems to outdo even his own standards of showmanship and uncharitable judgment. From the overly confident title, to the individual essays in which, one after another, a sort of competitive fervor dominate, The...