Progressives and progressivism
May 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
It may be too optimistic to wonder if commencement speech to the graduating students of Ohio State University (White House video here) might not have represented the high tide of Obamaism. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I wonder if it might not be (bumpily, with the implementation of Obamacare before us) downhill from here: Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as
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May 12, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I dropped by my old haunts at AEI in Washington last week, and stuck my head in Norm Ornstein’s office with the intent of exchanging a few of our ritual jeers and heckles, but he was deep in phone conversation with his bookie or someone. Too bad, as he’s done it again with his National Journal article on “The Myth of Presidential Leadership.” Ornstein writes in a typically clever way
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May 5, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Visiting the site of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale to watch Professor Donald Kagan’s farewell lecture, I found the video below of George Will’s lecture to the group this past January. The lecture provides a short course in the Constitution and the revolt of the Progressives against it, from Wilson to TR and FDR, to LBJ and to Obama. It is learned and vivid, with some pungent
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April 9, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In one of his routines on the justice system dating back to the early 1970′s, comedian Richard Pryor commented sarcastically (in language rated XXX): “You go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find: Just us.” Pryor was referring to the racial composition of the players involved in the administration of justice. Times have changed substantially in that respect, but reading Ben Shapiro’s account of President Obama’s gun control
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April 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In previewing the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) yesterday we featured Bill Voegeli’s demolition of Michael Grunwald’s panegyric supporting the godawful stimulus bill of 2009, enacted right around the time that the recession was ending (according to the National Bureau of Economic Research). We continue our preview today with Hillsdale College Professor R.J. Pestritto’s review of Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition, by Bowdoin
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March 31, 2013 — Scott Johnson
John Podhoretz argues in the editor’s note of the new issue of Commentary that it’s time for conservatives to get serious about Obama, or begin taking him seriously on his own terms. John takes Obama to be a conventional liberal and chides conservatives for painting him as an extremist, an exaggeration which proves to be to Obama’s advantage. If Obama is a conventional liberal, however, liberalism has moved to the
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February 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Henry Ford is reported to have said that “History is bunk.” Reviewing Paula Baker’s new book, Brad Smith reminds us of some history made by Ford: Ninety-five years ago Truman Newberry, a modest, well-mannered scion of an old-money Detroit family, suddenly found himself under federal indictment and his very name synonymous with political corruption. Newberry’s “crime”? He had run for the United States Senate as a long-shot underdog against the
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January 22, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Liberals are feeling triumphant these days, but in the backs of their minds there must be a sense of foreboding. They won this year by demonizing Republicans and by bribing various demographic groups with government largesse. But the Left’s tactical victory can’t conceal the fact that its ideology is bankrupt. The left’s real enemy isn’t Republicans, it is arithmetic. Welfare states are collapsing all around the world. Ours is on
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December 2, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Harvey Manssfield is the great teacher of government and long-time member of the Harvard faculty. Among his books are Manliness and an indispensable edition of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. The Wall Street Journal Weekend interview profiles Professor Mansfield. At age 80, he can look back on an incredibly distinguished career, but he’s still going strong. The quotable Professor Mansfield offers this: “We have now an American political party and a
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December 1, 2012 — Scott Johnson
John Hinderaker and I wrote an essay on income inequality in 1995 and haven’t much looked back at the subject. We took our bearings from the proposition of Publius in the Federalist that the “first object of government” is to protect “the different and unequal faculties of acquiring property[.]” Now there is a revolutionary thought! The liberals’ appetite for income redistribution and animus against income inequality proceed unabated, arguably stronger
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October 9, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
You might think that an African-American actress could tweet her support for Mitt Romney without becoming the subject of vicious verbal abuse in response. But to think this, you would have to be oblivious to the character of the American left. The actress in question is Stacey Dash. She tweeted an image of herself in a red swimsuit in front of the American Flag with the message, “Vote for Romney.
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September 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Jean Yarbrough is Professor of Government and Gary M. Pendy, Sr. Professor of Social Sciences at Bowdoin College. Professor Yarbrough’s new book — Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition — has been 12 years in the making. Beautifully written, it answers the longstanding need for a book that seriously examines the political thought of Theodore Roosevelt and accurately places him in the American political tradition. This is an important
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