IN THE February 23, 2009, ISSUE
Our Lincoln
‘What is conservatism?”
This question has been getting more than its usual share of raking over in the post-Bush beginnings of 2009. But it was being asked in terms just as ...
Also In This Issue
Articles
The Survivor
Rep. Peter King’s Washington, D.C., office is stuffed full of New York memorabilia. Every wall is covered with framed photos of actors and baseball players (King’s allegiance lies with the ...
The Hot Seat
There are more pro-life Democrats, even now, than you might think. There’s no denying that the numbers have dropped off over the years. In the early years of the abortion ...
The Anti-Keynes
In the current economic-policy debate, the ideas of John Maynard Keynes are resurgent. Here are some of the results: Federal deficit spending soon will reach, and far exceed, previous peacetime ...
A Great and Stirring Hour
Davos, Switzerland — The “global elites” have gathered once more in this Alpine village, for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum. More than 40 heads of state or ...
Not Our Stars but Ourselves
What causes anorexia nervosa, the terrible mental illness whose victims (mostly young women) starve themselves, sometimes to death? To many observers, the answer is clear: Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and Seventh ...
Features
Our Lincoln
‘What is conservatism?”
This question has been getting more than its usual share of raking over in the post-Bush beginnings of 2009. But it was being asked in terms just as ...
At What Cost?
Conservatives should stop trying to remove 12 million illegal aliens from American soil, either by rounding them up or by inducing them to “self-deport.” In the Southwest, the West, the ...
Factory Man
I still remember the first time I walked into a working factory. In the foreground, innumerable machines whirred and clacked away in precise, interlocking dances. A massive vat shaped like ...
Books, Arts & Manners
The Best Conservative Movies
Once in a blue moon, Hollywood releases a conservative movie, or at least a film that resonates with conservatives in a particular way. Because conservatives love movies — and especially ...
Rabbit’s Great Run
My Updike kick started 30 years ago, with an old paperback, bought from a used bookseller, of Rabbit, Run (1960), his first novel about Harry Angstrom.
What hooked me was the ...
A Small Tent
The question Roger Simon seeks to answer in his unsparing, alternately funny and sad but always fascinating second-thoughts memoir is: Why did he change from an idealistic Hollywood leftist to ...
Boring from Within
There are two ways to watch Steven Soderbergh’s Che. The two-part, 257-minute immersion in the life, times, and military campaigns of Latin America’s most iconic Marxist has been released simultaneously ...
Cellphobjects
I am an Old One. Not a dead one: This piece was written on a PC, and flown by e-mail to its journalistic nest. But that is the labor of ...
Sections
Letters
Pennsylvania-Kentucky Longrifles
I’d like, if I may, to correct some misperceptions about what I do and do not argue in my book American Rifle: A Biography — reviewed in the December ...
The Week
‐ We liked limousine liberals better when they paid for their own cars.
‐ Former senator Tom Daschle, who withdrew his nomination to serve as secretary of health and human services, ...
From the POTUS Inbox . . .
To: Husseinsmymiddlename@whitehouse.gov
From: rahmemmanuel@whitehouse.gov
Subject: Need clarity on tax issue
Sir:
A question from some of the new guys in the cabinet: If you’ve received more than $400,000 in small, unmarked bills from anyone ...
The Classless Society
One day when I was very small — it was before the war — I was seated next to my mother as we drove through Georgetown. Passing a scabrous stone ...
Poetry
FEBRUARY
Some flaky kid gave me gravel for a grin,
I’m bundled up against the cold in a cast-off coat,
and the scarf — that’s a joke, am I right?
There’s nothing I can ...
The Children’s Crusade
The other day I found myself wondering when the conversion rate would become an avalanche. To Islam, I mean. If you’ve been following recent developments in the Netherlands, you’ll know ...