Magazine October 3, 2011, Issue

Terminal Eloquence

By Florence King

About Florence King

September 15, 2011 4:00 AM

King George V in 1923. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress)

This column was supposed to be about presidential personality problems. I should have started writing it sooner to give myself plenty of time but I was irresistibly distracted by a little book somebody sent me called Famous Last Words. This subject has been on my mind lately thanks to the rash of statements designed to shove the aging back into the womb. First there was “40 is the new 30,” then came “50 is the new 40,” next we had “60 is the new 50,” and now they’re saying “70 is the new 60.”

In this as in every area of …

In This Issue

Articles

Politics & Policy

Social Security Alert

By Ramesh Ponnuru

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney have begun a lively debate about Social Security, but it’s not the one we need. Their debate mostly concerns whether it was a good idea ...

Politics & Policy

Dead Letter

By Robert VerBruggen

It’s not news that the United States Postal Service is going bankrupt, but the reality of the situation has finally started to sink in. The New York Times reported in ...

Politics & Policy

Crime, Punishment, and Rehabilitation

By Mitch Pearlstein

People on the right tend to be enthusiastic about yoking men and women in marriage and about locking bad guys up in prison. To what extent, however, does the latter ...

Politics & Policy

The Right Kind of Tyrant

By Rob Long

The business world is famous for its difficult bosses, to put it as mildly as possible. There are screamers and throwers and silent-treatment types — all kinds and shapes of ...

Features

Politics & Policy

Swift Blind Horseman?

By Peter Thiel

When He opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come and see.” So I looked, and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it ...

Politics & Policy

Patently Absurd

By Timothy B. Lee

In 1994, Claudio Ballard was an unemployed computer programmer with a great idea: a system to scan paper financial documents and store them on a secure server. Ballard built a ...

Politics & Policy

Innovations and Limitations

By Allison Schrager

Innovation propels economies forward. It is why most Americans live long lives in relative comfort instead of toiling on a subsistence farm. Innovation usually refers to the creation of a ...

Books, Arts & Manners

Politics & Policy

The Missing Man

By Matthew Continetti

One of the most striking moments in this excellent book arrives on page 15, when Mitch Daniels notes that, in the early days of the American republic, currency often bore ...

Politics & Policy

Bless the Beasts

By Claire Berlinski

Some virtues are by accidents of history associated with utopianism, hostility to private property, anti-clericalism, and other core beliefs of the Left. I can scandalize a yoga instructor anywhere in ...

Politics & Policy

A Long Red Sunset

By Harvey Klehr

One of the hardy staples of American history is the question of what happened to American socialism. As the only industrialized nation in the world in which avowedly socialist or ...

Politics & Policy

Bush Reconsidered

By Quin Hillyer

The late administration of George W. Bush has found its Dr. Pangloss. In some respects, that might be a good thing. Pangloss, of course, was the character in Candide who insisted ...

Politics & Policy

Going Viral

By Ross Douthat

Some of the scariest material that Stephen King has ever written — scarier, in its way, than anything in The Shining or ’Salem’s Lot or Pet Sematary — is contained ...

Catalog Shopper

By John Derbyshire

We do ever more of our shopping online, I am told. The printed book is facing extinction, I am also told. The U.S. Postal Service is in dire straits, I ...

Sections

Politics & Policy

Letters

By NR Staff

The Ron Paul Movement Rides On It is not surprising that with the polls ranking him third nationally, Ron Paul would finally make the cover of National Review (“Ron Paul’s Last ...

Politics & Policy

The Week

By NR Staff

‐ Bad news for the Democrats: It turns out some of those people who cling bitterly to their religion are Orthodox Jews in Queens. ‐ The great strength of the conservative ...

The Bent Pin

Terminal Eloquence

By Florence King

This column was supposed to be about presidential personality problems. I should have started writing it sooner to give myself plenty of time but I was irresistibly distracted by a ...

The Twitter stream of @youthcaptain, the next leader of North Korea . . .

By Rob Long

Girls, help me out. If a guy is powerful and connected, does it matter if he’s a little on the plump side? Asking for a friend. Please RT! Hey! @gwynethpaltrow! I ...

Athwart

Proper Aim

By James Lileks

Ask any employer, and you’ll hear the same lament: We’d love to hire people, but we need an inexplicable modification of the tax code exquisitely calibrated to provide a tiny ...

Politics & Policy

In These Photographs, My Rival

By Jennifer Reeser

. . . grips a tapered wine glass, nearly drained, Beneath a gold band and engagement gem; Ham-fisted, left-hand fingers round the stem, Forefinger lifted, fattened with the strain. The symptoms of her sloe-eyed ...

Flight

By Mark Steyn

At the start of the summer, I attended a graduation ceremony in Vermont, for which a bigshot speaker had been flown up from New York. “Your world is changing so ...

Recommended

Biden Signs Executive Order Allowing the U.S. to Fund Global Abortions

Biden Signs Executive Order Allowing the U.S. to Fund Global Abortions

The policy was first instated by President Reagan to ensure that taxpayers would not be required to indirectly fund abortions in other countries.

Alexandra DeSanctis

Exclusive: 48 Senators Promise to Oppose Any Bill that Funds Abortion

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Pro-life lawmakers pledge to resist spending bills that don’t include the Hyde amendment.

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The Absurd Criticism of Rand Paul’s Rachel Levine Questioning

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How likely is it that this dangerous ideological agenda is about to get worse?

Madeleine Kearns

Cruz: Actually, It Is Constitutional to Impeach and Convict a Former President

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Never mind how he voted.

What Happened to Officer Sicknick?

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Democratic impeachment managers have a duty to explain how Officer Sicknick died.

Andrew C. McCarthy

Minnesota Nasty

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Minneapolis is a nice city no longer.

Kevin D. Williamson

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Biden: Illegal Immigrants Should Be Able to Get Vaccine without Fear of ICE

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GameStop: Markets Adjust, Politicians Frown

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The week of February 22: GameStop, again, a poor choice for Interior, China’s rare-earths play, and much, much more.

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House Narrowly Passes Massive COVID-Response Bill, Including $15 Minimum Wage

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The bill passed largely along party lines.

What Makes the Classics Worth Studying

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One classical scholar believes that the field is too implicated in ‘whiteness’ to survive as-is. Here’s why he’s wrong.

Andre M. Archie

Garland Heralds Return of the Obama Justice Department — Radical as Ever

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Two highly troubling DOJ nominees are likely to roll over Garland just like the woke Left is rolling over Biden.

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