NR PLUS
Magazine November 23, 2009, Issue

The Bent Pin

By
Just Because Stories

Do not ask from whom freedom of opinion has been stolen. It has been stolen from thee.

 I don’t mean all opinions; I mean the kind of opinion that just is. The opinion that we feel no need to argue about because it is the sum total of our customs, traditions, temperament, personality, general hold on sanity, and presumption of sanity in others. It is the opinion that encompasses the whole crisp panoply of unbudgeable and unabashed certainty that we used to take for granted but which has just about vanished from the American psyche. 

This kind of opinion is invariably preceded …

In This Issue

Articles

Politics & Policy

What Won Virginia

By
  It was Sept. 17, 2009, and Virginia’s widely watched gubernatorial election had come to Tysons Corner. The contest was close, and Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds were meeting ...
Politics & Policy

Correan War

By
Ecuador is not a banana republic; it is a bananas, shrimp, flowers, and oil republic. Those products are the country’s main exports, and earnings from them have declined as a ...

Features

Politics & Policy

Unholy Union

By
  The Friday before Halloween, in response to requests from the public, the White House released records of the visitors it had received between January and July. George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, ...
Politics & Policy

The Road from 1989

By
On Inauguration Day 1989, National Review gave a celebratory dinner in Washington at which the guests included Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Safire, and the Soviet ambassador and his wife. Contrary to ...

Books, Arts & Manners

Politics & Policy

China Alone?

By
This book says we can expect, in the near future, the loss of American preeminence, the fall of the West, and the global dominance of a Chinese civilization-state. China will ...
The Straggler

Driveway Drama

By
So many things to know; so many points of view; so many disagreements, so many mishaps. Compared with home ownership, politics is a breeze. We are waiting for the driveway people ...

Sections

The Long View

The Long View

By
From the Barack Obama archives . . . November 17, 1967 Dear Miss Darmawan: I’d like to thank you, Miss Darmawan, for having me in your kindergarten class. It’s truly an honor — ...
The Bent Pin

The Bent Pin

By
Do not ask from whom freedom of opinion has been stolen. It has been stolen from thee.  I don’t mean all opinions; I mean the kind of opinion that just is. ...
Politics & Policy

My Stars

By
On the day I was born, The unalterable stars altered. If I decided to sell lamps, It wouldn’t get dark till the day I died. Some stars. Whatever I do, I’m a failure before I ...
Happy Warrior

Neatherworld

By
‘Would it not be easier,” wrote Bertolt Brecht after the East German uprising in 1953, “for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?” The thought has occurred to several ...