Borrowing the title of Patrick J. Buchanan’s 2004 book, I’ll be giving a talk on “Where the Right Went Wrong” this coming Tuesday at 7:30 pm on the campus of North Carolina State University, in Harrelson Hall, Room 107.
With Bush’s approval ratings in the 30s, Republicans set to lose ground — and perhaps lose control [...]
TAC goes to print today, a little earlier than usual ahead of the Labor Day weekend. Between that and a few other things — catching up on some reading and writing, preparing for a talk at North Carolina State University on Tuesday, etc. — I’ve been neglecting the blog for the past few days. Proper [...]
At the denouement of Auberon Waugh’s novel A Bed of Flowers (about a hippie commune set up on a Somerset farm by a drop-out businessman and his ex-Jesuit spiritual advisor), a certain Fr. Rasputian officiates at a triple wedding on the Glastonbury Tor. The nearby ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, despoiled by Henry VIII in the [...]
I’d been hoping that a few pieces from the TAC symposium on Left and Right beyond Heather Mac Donald’s would generate some comment. Here we have one of our symposiasts, Ross Douthat, taking issue with another, Jeremy Beer, on a few points. Be sure to see Jeremy’s response in the comments section. And here are [...]
There’s an excellent, thought-provoking essay on Leo Strauss and Straussians in the new (Sumer 2006) issue of Modern Age by Richard Sherlock of Utah State University. He’s sympathetic to Strauss in some respects and particularly values Strauss’s close readings of ancient texts. But ultimately he finds the project of Strauss and the Straussians sterile:
At bottom [...]
In Pennsylvania, Santorum no longer trails Bob Casey Jr. by double-digits: the latest Strategic Visions poll has Casey ahead by six points. Lynn Swann, meanwhile, the Republican nominee for Pennslyvania’s governor, is floudering; incumbent Democrat Ed Rendell polls above 50%.
Virginia’s antiwar Democratic senate candidate James Webb now trails Sen. George “Macaca” Allen by just five points, if Rasmussen is to be believed. As a friend points out, potentially more important is fact that Allen’s polling below 50%, a sign of trouble for an incumbent. (Link via Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire and TPM.)
A large swathe of the Right has lost its mind. The warlust runs so deep it’s not even related to any recognizable strategic goal anymore. It’s war as self-expression. It means “We’re serious.” Never mind that it makes as much sense as chewing glass. Sure, the post is hedged and qualified with weasel words and [...]
An unadvertised “bonus” at the end of Paul Cantor’s week-long seminar at the Mises Institute last month: at the end, we were all conscripted to roll up and package posters! Now you can order them — a snazzy Austrian economists gallery in miniature, possibly rolled by yours truly or by Professor Cantor himself.
p.s. My only [...]
Two Republicans may be vying as write-in candidates to fill Tom DeLay’s seat in Congress this November, according to Paul Kiel at TPMmuckraker. Sugar Land Mayor David Wallace, who was passed over by the GOP party bosses for the “official” write-in nomination, described the process of selecting Shelley Sekula-Gibbs over him as “something that may [...]