Reading the recent coverage of the presidential election from Iowa through New Hampshire, Michigan, and beyond, I have been thoroughly impressed with the news media’s ability to spin a good yarn. The coverage of the Clinton/Obama tête-à-tête has by now bested Don King’s boxing showmanship; Mitt Romney’s disappearing/reappearing status as contender follows a plot line...

He is a sick man—an angry man. He is a brutish man. He is an elusive and ambiguous man. He is an endlessly contradictory man. He is the ultimate politico. He is Rudy Giuliani. But who the hell is that? Perhaps cribbing from Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground is a bit out of hand for...

This past year or so has brought about a perfect storm of death, reflection, and publication for America’s new favorite literary genre: blind hero worship of President Kennedy. The recent death of Arthur Schlesinger, the first and foremost author of Kennedy fawning, along with a growing desire to find similarities between the current quagmire in...

These days, I find myself becoming quite displeased and agitated with the activities of our lauded universities. The source of my consternation tends largely to revolve around the cheap public relations gymnastics university organizations engage in whenever any unpleasant incident or fact becomes known. Most notable in the past few months were the responses to...

Conservatism in America ultimately exists in two forms. Most obvious is the clearly defined outline of the stereotypical Republican—pro-business, big on defense spending, with a dash of socially conservative values and utter humorlessness. Though the past eight years of American governmental activity would force any freethinking citizen who isn’t firmly suckling at the teat of...