History
November 11, 2025 — John Hinderaker
I am not a veteran. I have three brothers, and none is a veteran. We come from a civilian family. But my grandfather served in World War I, and my father in World War II. I know nothing of my grandfather’s service, but, in honor of Veterans Day, this is what I know about my father’s experience. He was a college student in South Dakota when the war broke out,
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November 11, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In honor of Veterans Day today TCM will play The Best Years of Our Lives this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern). I want to draw from my previously posted comments on the movie to recall it briefly with a little background provided by Mark Harris. Harris tells the highly improbable story behind the making of the film in Five Came Back, his excellent account of the prominent directors who volunteered
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November 9, 2025 — Scott Johnson
III. Keith Ellison Keith Ellison was a state senator in his when Minnesota Fifth District Democrats nominated him to succeed Martin Sabo in Congress. He had first run unsuccessully for state representative in 1998 as Keith Ellison-Muhammad, a self-proclaimed member and local leader of the Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam shtick was not recent development. In law school Ellison had written four columns published in the University of
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November 8, 2025 — Scott Johnson
II. Rathergate We arrive at Rathergate in 2004. I’m guessing you all know the story from my end. On September 8 CBS News broadcast the story “For The Record” seeking to impugn President Bush’s National Guard service based on memos allegedly from the personal file of President Bush’s commanding officer. Thinking there might be more to the story, I wrote about the segment the following morning in a post I
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November 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson
John and I started writing together about political issues under a joint byline for fun on the side of our law practice in late 1992 and early 1993. We were provoked by the wretched revisionist history of the Reagan era by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters James Barlett and Donald Steele. Barlett and Steele had written what must be the most successful syndicated newspaper series of all time — America: What
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November 6, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Susan Vass (i.e., Ammo Grrrll) invited me to appear as the first of three keynote speakers at her annual Commenter Conference this past August. Steve Hayward and Anthony Lucido appeared on the following days as keynote speakers two and three. Susan had been writing her humor column for Power Line for 12 years. I answered her call because we owed her, even though my remakrs didn’t even make a dent
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November 4, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I am sad to note the death of former Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday at the age of 84. The statement released by his family is posted below. #BREAKING: Former VP Dick Cheney passed away last night at 84, his family confirmed in a statement. @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/dKj6YHaWQI — Courtney Spinelli (@CourtSpinelliTV) November 4, 2025 Steve Hayes wrote the biography Cheney (2007). It’s interesting from the first page. I recommend it
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October 24, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Preoccupied with other business this week, I have barely been able to keep up with the headlines. I thought I would post my recommendations in last year’s Claremont Review of Books annual Christmas roundup, which is full of contributions by eminent scholars such as Andrew Roberts, Heather Mac Donald, Dan Mahoney, Amy Wax, and Jean Yarbrough. Slightly supplemented, this is what I had to offer. Washington Post reporter and editor
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October 23, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Although we have taken a timeout from following the most recent conspiracy theories promoted by Tucker Carlson, we have decried his descent into the gutter of rank anti-Semitism. Every writer, every public figure, every publication, and every institution that lauded him in years past is obligated to speak out against the vile figure he has become — deceitful and destructive in his own right and a discredit to everyone with
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October 22, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In the adjacent post I put quotes around the adjective “diverse” in mentioning Thomas Sowell’s “diverse” contributions to the wide range of subjects he has addressed in his books. Is it possible to use the word “diversity” and its cognates unironically? It is possible, but I can’t do it. That is at least in part thanks to National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood’s Diversity: The Invention of a Concept
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October 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
One doesn’t need to be the Oracle of Delphi to foretell the coming of the vile Zohran Mamdani as the next mayor of New York. It’s almost unbelievable. Mamdani’s father is Mahmood Mamdani, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Professor of Anthropology and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at — you may have heard — Columbia University. That is all too believable. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal carried
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October 15, 2025 — Scott Johnson
George Stephanoploulos jumped in to put his ignorance on display in this past weekend’s edition of his Sunday gabfest on ABC. Sarah Isgur delivered a brief refresher. Sarah Isgur makes a total fool out of George Stephanopoulos after he claimed that the Insurrection Act has never been invoked "over the objections of governors." First JD and now Sarah, George is not having a good week. 😂pic.twitter.com/0fc0AtpuFe — MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters)
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October 10, 2025 — Scott Johnson
John Updike compiled three volumes of short stories about his writerly Jewish alter ego Henry Bech. When Bech is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature — in “Bech and the Bounty of Sweden,” the concluding story of Bech At Bay — Updike posited the headline reporting the news in the New York Daily News: “BECH? WHODAT???” The thought was at the same time self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing. Updike was one of
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October 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Paramount formally announced the onetime New York Times opinion writer turned Free Press founder Bari Weiss as its editor in chief on Monday. Staffers at the perennially third-place network and their allies in the mainstream media are not taking it well. The Washington Free Beacon has compiled the predictable reactions in “‘What the ——?’: CBS News Staffers Melt Down Over New Boss Bari Weiss.” The Free Beacon quotes the reaction
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October 1, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Jews begin the observance of Yom Kippur at sundown tonight with the Kol Nidre prayer service. Ten years ago our friend Rachel Paulose asked to join us at our service. Since then she has regularly attended the service with us and joined my family when we break our fast. The first time around at services with us she pointed in our prayer book to an adaptation of the prayer composed
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September 21, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Teddy Kennedy became the lion of the Senate and of American liberalism. His legislative accomplishments have done much to shape the United States into the form he desired. We will be living with, and taking the measure of, his legacy for a long time to come. Certainly in one respect, Senator Kennedy’s contribution to our public life has been indisputably negative. In the role he played opposing the nomination of
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September 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
My friend Wilfred McClay holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College. He has now co-edited (with Rabbi Stuart Halpern of Yeshiva University) Jewish Roots of American Liberty, to be published next week by Encounter Books. I learned of the book from an advertisement in the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books. Having written Bill to ask about the book yesterday
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