NR PLUS
Magazine February 6, 2012, Issue

Lean Left

By
The Hoover Dam (Jim Urquhart/Reuters)
MSNBC drops the mask

MSNBC, which is a cable news channel in precisely the same sense that a gentlemen’s club is a club for gentlemen, has been doing a public service by collecting its tedious liberal operating assumptions into a series of advertisements, the “Lean Forward” campaign. If you want to know more about the obscure motives of the agitated and fitful little hamster turning the neocortical wheel inside Rachel Maddow’s apparently impenetrable noggin, then by all means have a gander at these commercials at msnbc.com. If, on the other hand, you have a full and productive life, with family and professional obligations, hope …

In This Issue

Articles

Features

Books, Arts & Manners

Politics & Policy

Mute Point

By
This promises to be a challenging year for Oscar voters. The old reliables — Steven Spielberg with War Horse, Martin Scorsese with Hugo, Clint Eastwood with J. Edgar — haven’t ...
Politics & Policy

The Virtue Deficit

By
Charles Murray writes important and provocative books. His latest book, Coming Apart, joins Losing Ground (1984) and The Bell Curve (1994) as, in my view, among his most important and ...
Politics & Policy

The Vice of Moderation

By
National Review’s founding in 1955 is widely considered the spark that lit the modern conservative movement. According to Geoffrey Kabaservice’s new book, that moment was also the beginning of the ...
Politics & Policy

Acid Test

By
Everything changed for Ambrose Bierce the day he was shot in the head. At least that’s one theory about how a bright young man from Horse Cave Creek in Ohio ...

Sections

The Bent Pin

Mr. Hitchens and I

By
Christopher Hitchens and I were not friends or even acquaintances. We never met or spoke on the phone, just exchanged occasional brief letters — notes really — hand-written and snail-mailed ...
Athwart

The Gilded Choo-choo

By
Aside from the used diaper in the sleeping-car compartment, it wasn’t a bad train trip. Arrived the day it was supposed to, didn’t derail. If you’re wondering how a used ...
The Long View

NSA Surveillance

By
Document Extract Mobile Communication Project Begin extract 01.15.12 GMT 13:47 Static. Unidentified Male Voice: Hello? Unidentified Male Voice 2: Yessir? Over. Unidentified Male Voice: Is this Rick Perry? Unidentified Male Voice 2: Yes it is, sir. To whom ...
Politics & Policy

Poetry

By
CENTURION (Matthew 2:16) I’ve slaughtered babies all day long, near Bethlehem. But why? If the wizards are right, nothing can alter the Fates, and, if they’re wrong, we’re killing without a reason. So now, at night, I ...
Happy Warrior

Paul the Parochial

By
Uncle Sam has now spent a decade running around the Hindu Kush building grade schools and shoveling taxpayer-funded Viagra to every elderly village headman with one too many child brides. ...
Politics & Policy

Letters

By
Lincoln’s Constitution and Ours Fred Schwarz made my blood boil in his review of Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation (“Lincoln’s Constitution,” January 23). Does the expression “The ends justify ...
Politics & Policy

The Week

By
‐ Mismanaged and lacking strategic direction, the Gingrich campaign may be in need of a leveraged buyout. ‐ After the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Mitt Romney is much ...

Most Popular

Education

Don’t Forgive Student Debt

By
This week, the Left has intensified its calls for President-elect Joe Biden to forgive student debt via executive order, perhaps as much as $50,000 per borrower. Such a move would constitute both awful policy and an abuse of the discretion that Congress has granted to the executive branch in this area. It is ... Read More
Education

Don’t Forgive Student Debt

By
This week, the Left has intensified its calls for President-elect Joe Biden to forgive student debt via executive order, perhaps as much as $50,000 per borrower. Such a move would constitute both awful policy and an abuse of the discretion that Congress has granted to the executive branch in this area. It is ... Read More
Elections

Deadlines Loom

By
It's crunch time. The deadlines for certifying the election results for the big swing states start arriving at the end of this week. Georgia’s is Friday. Michigan and Pennsylvania must certify their results by November 23. Nevada’s is December 1. Once those certifications occur, the vote count is over and the ... Read More
Elections

Deadlines Loom

By
It's crunch time. The deadlines for certifying the election results for the big swing states start arriving at the end of this week. Georgia’s is Friday. Michigan and Pennsylvania must certify their results by November 23. Nevada’s is December 1. Once those certifications occur, the vote count is over and the ... Read More
U.S.

The Left Politicizes COVID: Irony Abounds

By
Where has the coronavirus gone? Nowhere. The pandemic has gained a second wind, even as it is mysteriously scarcer in post-election headlines. If anything, COVID-19 seems more contagious as cold temperatures arrive, people stay in indoors, and perhaps their vitamin D levels taper off. Whatever one’s views ... Read More
U.S.

The Left Politicizes COVID: Irony Abounds

By
Where has the coronavirus gone? Nowhere. The pandemic has gained a second wind, even as it is mysteriously scarcer in post-election headlines. If anything, COVID-19 seems more contagious as cold temperatures arrive, people stay in indoors, and perhaps their vitamin D levels taper off. Whatever one’s views ... Read More
Elections

The Radicalism of Raphael Warnock

By
Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock is trying to run away from his radical left-wing record in his campaign to persuade Georgia voters to elect him and hand Democrats unified control of Congress and the White House. But no one should be fooled. In a November 9 interview, Warnock dodged questions about ... Read More
Elections

The Radicalism of Raphael Warnock

By
Democratic Senate candidate Raphael Warnock is trying to run away from his radical left-wing record in his campaign to persuade Georgia voters to elect him and hand Democrats unified control of Congress and the White House. But no one should be fooled. In a November 9 interview, Warnock dodged questions about ... Read More
International

Finally, Maduro is Listening

By
On Monday, Bloomberg broke the news that Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro is inching toward official dollarization. He has ordered the Banco Central de Venezuela to engage in discussions with Venezuelan bankers on the modalities of creating a clearing and settlement system in U.S. dollars. Maduro, in a ... Read More
International

Finally, Maduro is Listening

By
On Monday, Bloomberg broke the news that Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro is inching toward official dollarization. He has ordered the Banco Central de Venezuela to engage in discussions with Venezuelan bankers on the modalities of creating a clearing and settlement system in U.S. dollars. Maduro, in a ... Read More
White House

Obama’s Grotesque Self-Revisionism

By
In an episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes last Sunday, former president Barack Obama not-so-subtly compared Trump’s tenure in the White House to something out of a banana republic or a one-party totalitarian state: I think that there has been this sense over the last several years that literally anything goes and is ... Read More
White House

Obama’s Grotesque Self-Revisionism

By
In an episode of CBS’s 60 Minutes last Sunday, former president Barack Obama not-so-subtly compared Trump’s tenure in the White House to something out of a banana republic or a one-party totalitarian state: I think that there has been this sense over the last several years that literally anything goes and is ... Read More