National Review Magazine June 17, 2013, Issue

Auditing Cicero

When will you stop testing our patience? How long will you mock us? How long must we endure that famous audacity of yours? The people are alarmed — doesn’t that ...

Politics & Policy

Hard to Fire

By John Fund

Lois Lerner, who is at the center of the IRS targeting scandal, is clearly not a model federal employee. But it is very difficult to fire her or anyone else ...

Politics & Policy

Brother Cornel in Britain

By Anthony Daniels

When Brother Cornel — also known as Dr. West, depending on the context — came to Britain, the Guardian newspaper, the daily Bible reading of Britain’s state-funded intelligentsia, reported that ...

Politics & Policy

Decades ago, the distinguished Lincoln biographer David Herbert Donald coined the phrase “getting right with Lincoln” to describe the impulse people feel to appropriate Lincoln for their own political agendas. ...

Politics & Policy

UKIP Shakes Up Westminster

By Mark Steyn

It’s all but impossible to launch a new political party under America’s electoral arrangements, and extremely easy to do so under Continental proportional representation. The Westminster first-past-the-post system puts the ...

Politics & Policy

A Chronic Disease

By Ramesh Ponnuru

Conservatives and Republicans in Washington — activists, strategists, politicians — are increasingly embracing a theory about Obamacare: It’s going to collapse of its own weight, and its failure could yield ...

Politics & Policy

Three Brave Lives

By Jay Nordlinger

Oslo, Norway — There comes Chen Guangcheng, walking down the hallway. I say to him, “My hero.” I have never said this to anyone, or at least not to a ...

Politics & Policy

Leviathan Fail

By Jonah Goldberg

In Our Enemy, the State, Albert Jay Nock distinguished between the government and the State. Sadly, these terms have become interchangeable in everyday parlance: “Statism” is simply a more euphonious ...

Politics & Policy

Brain Teases

By Theodore Dalrymple

Nearly 40 years ago, and only four years after CAT scans had been introduced into clinical practice, I had a patient who believed that his neighbor, a London bus driver, ...

Politics & Policy

The Uprising

By Galen Mac Caba

To the Western mind, 1979 may seem an unremarkable year. The year 1939 saw the start of World War II; 1969, the moon landing; 1989, the crumbling of the Iron ...

Politics & Policy

A Comeback Concert

By Jay Nordlinger

It was the big event of the New York music season. In fact, it was the big event of many seasons. James Levine conducted a concert in Carnegie Hall — ...

Politics & Policy

To Boldly Flunk

By Ross Douthat

I fear that I may no longer be entirely rational on the subject of J. J. Abrams, whose second Star Trek movie just bowed into theaters. For a long ...

Country Life

Grasping the Thistle

By Richard Brookhiser

Fifty years ago my parents had a lawn — half an acre, surrounding their post-war ranch house. It was mowed (by me, when I could not avoid it). When it ...

Politics & Policy

Letters

By NR Staff

Light Shines from New Haven I would like to thank Eliana Johnson for her tribute to Donald Kagan as he announced his retirement (“Donald Kagan’s Last Lecture,” May 20). His departure might ...

Politics & Policy

The Week

By NR Staff

‐ The IRS is targeting people who make Obama look bad. Eric Holder, call your accountant. ‐ President Obama’s sprawling and frequently tedious National Defense University speech was long on hope ...

Politics & Policy

Poetry

By Lawrence Dugan

THE GREEN SWARD That green sward I used to walk above A baseball-diamond Mother remembered Near Penn, under a bridge, a field always Surprising her when she happened to recall It, a petal on a ...

Happy Warrior

Acceptance, Silence, and Submission

By Mark Steyn

Four years ago in this space, I was anticipating an increase in Islamic-conversion rates in the likes of Amsterdam and Rotterdam: Let’s say you work in an office in those cities: ...

The Long View

Investigation into the AP/James Rosen Matter

By Rob Long

Department of Justice OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT Investigation into the AP/James Rosen Matter Interview with Subject conducted 5/29/13 in Conference Room H-0889, Department of Justice. Present: Investigator and Person of Interest [Name Redacted] Interview begins 11:03 a.m. INTERVIEWER: ...

Athwart

Moving Performances

By James Lileks

Fine art these days is rarely either. Go to the sculpture wing of a contemporary museum, and you won’t find a painstakingly chiseled block of marble whose astonishing frozen drapery ...

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