First Links — 5.10.12

How to Succeed* in DC Anna Williams,  Ignitum Today What’s the Matter with North Carolina? Nicholas Frankovich,  The Corner Tolerance and Diversity at the Academy Mollie Hemingway,   Richochet Van Gogh’s Collapse of Authority Hugh Eakin,  Wall Street Journal Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »

Romney And Virginia

I agree with Peter and Sean Trende that we shouldn’t worry too much about the state polls in North Carolina right now.  If Obama wins North Carolina, it will be because he clearly won the national popular vote and North Carolina’s electoral votes will not have proved . . . . Continue Reading »

President Obama is Wrong on Gay Marriage

President Obama has come out in support of gay marriage today in an interview with ABC news . Well, that’s not quite right. He actually was in support of it back in 1996  before his position then “evolved” toward opposition. Today the dissembling ended, which may be good for . . . . Continue Reading »

The Power Brokers’ Biographer

This past weekend, the Wall Street Journal featured an interview with Robert Caro, who discussed the release of his fourth massive volume on the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Caro, whose biography of tyrannical urban planner Robert Moses ( The Power Broker ) is broadly considered one of the best . . . . Continue Reading »

The Dead Seriousness of Religious Tourism

A man in North Carolina spent each month of last year trying out a new religion. Laughable religious tourism? Not so, says Peter Berger: “his story is emblematic of American religious pluralism and instructive for understanding the latter.” Berger continues: In the pluralistic situation . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Square Today

George Weigel on biblical illiteracy and Bible Babel : One of the disappointments of the post-Vatican II period has been the glacial pace of the growth in Catholic biblical literacy the Council hoped to inspire. Why the slowdown? Several reasons suggest themselves. The hegemony of the . . . . Continue Reading »