Senate-race Shenanigans

Monday’s Wall Street Journal has a nice editorial review of the shenanigans going on in the Minnesota senate-race recount. After clearly explaining how—and why—vote totals could have swung so frequently in Mr. Franken’s favor, failing to mark duplicate ballots, judiciously . . . . Continue Reading »

Giving War a Chance

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has called for a United Nations investigation into Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Kucinich likened the Israeli attacks on Gaza to its war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in 2006. In both cases, he said, civilian populations were attacked and “countless . . . . Continue Reading »

Poetic Justice

Often, while trying to explain my rejection of the death penalty , I use the term “poetic justice,” that great narrative satisfaction that comes in certain stories like the clicking shut of a well-made box. And just as often, I’m asked for an example. Well, here for the record, is . . . . Continue Reading »

Adam’s Rib

Over at the law professors’ blog the Volokh Conspiracy , they’re noting the sixtieth anniversary of the movie Adam’s Rib —which prompts one commentator to quote the movie’s best line: “Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which . . . . Continue Reading »

Conserving Liberalism?

We enter a season in which the meaning of conservatism becomes the ping-pong ball du jour.  With not only an election, but the meaning of the “movement” in itself in the contention, people of various beliefs and commitments seek to lay claim to the word and thereby to the direction . . . . Continue Reading »