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Hitler’s Second Coming

It was surreal. President Biden began his State of the Union speech by invoking the Nazi threat. More than eighty years ago, Biden reminded us, Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation, as “Hitler was on the march,” and “freedom and democracy were under assault.” Today, the president warned, . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

Living within a stone’s throw of the nation’s leading collection of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood art housed at the Delaware Art Museum, I was familiar with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s art but not his poetry. I therefore appreciate having been enlightened by Brian Patrick Eha’s “Rossetti the . . . . Continue Reading »

Be Catholic First

A former colleague of mine in Congress recently told me that he now describes himself as a nondenominational Protestant rather than an evangelical. His reason? He has met too many evangelicals who view their faith as serving their politics. He believes this subordination is not only . . . . Continue Reading »

Made-For-TV Politics

The hearings of the January 6th Committee have flopped. Despite rave reviews from critics, audience reception has been tepid at best. Polling finds no indication that the hearings have changed anyone’s mind about January 6, 2021. Nor have the hearings resulted in any judicial action or big . . . . Continue Reading »

Leaving the Party

The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Volume IV:Party, Parliament, and the Dividing of the Whigs, 1780–1794 edited by p. j. marshall and donald bryantoxford, 608 pages, $200 In May 1791, six months after Edmund Burke touched off a pamphlet war with Reflections on the Revolution in France, a . . . . Continue Reading »

The End of Democracy?

Social media tend to magnify the expansive self, encouraging participants to stake out a virtual identity within the ethereal territory of the world wide web: “This is who I am, like it or not!” “My political beliefs are part of my identity; to call them into question is to call my very identity into question.” Continue Reading »

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