Politics
Baseball Cards Without Bubble Gum, 20 Years On
I recall finding out, to my horror, in the early 1990s, that Topps Baseball Card packages were no longer including their trademark brittle piece of gum that had been a mainstay of American boys’ youth since the late 1940s and early 1950s. At the time, my card collecting days were over but they were not for my…
From Under the Rubble…Is the Rule of Law Immoral?
The collapse of legitimacy in Washington continues, and the immigration debate is no exception. The rule of law withers away, while partisans wallow in sentimentalism, with curious consequences: consider the religious leaders who are at the forefront of the pro-amnesty movement. Somehow, they’re on the same side of the issue as big business, the banksters,…
From Under the Rubble…Happy Birthday, 1913!
The Rubble often notes with a fond nostalgia the wisdom of Robert Nisbet, who was born in 1913. In that year, he once observed, the only contact that the average US citizen had with the federal government was the Post Office. But along with the brilliant Nisbet, several evils were also born in 1913. The Sixteenth Amendment…
From Under the Rubble…The Old-Time Religion, Revised
The 2008 election season was just getting under way – a lifetime ago, it seems – when Don Devine, a longtime conservative and Reagan Administration official, decided to stir the pot. He emailed some of his conservative friends from the old days – the really old days. They passed it around and soon there were…
From Under the Rubble…The Return of the Conservative Conscience
In just thirteen hours, Rand Paul’s constitutional marathon established him as one of the best stump speakers in the senate. His easy-going, spontaneous, and cogent extended soliloquy sent a power surge through the somnambulant GOP. The ensuing swell of popular support for Senator Paul set the party – and, en passant, the conservative movement –…
From Under the Rubble…Disasters, Defiance, and Definitions
Pop Quiz: When is a Neocon Not A Neocon? Answer. When he’s wrong. Which is most of the time. And that irks Charles Krauthammer. Dr. Krauthammer is an interesting character. For some thirty years he’s been a Washington fixture. Trained as a psychiatrist, he became a speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale. He then began…
From Under the Rubble…The Clintons: Cause and Effect
During his years in the White House, Bill Clinton’s “boiler room” brought damage control to a new level. His serial scandals — their number is legion – elicited a constant symphony of denial — kind of like Ravel’s Bolero. James Carville and Paul Begala – Clinton’s Bolero Brothers — reacted to every allegation with feigned…
From Under the Rubble…Hoaxes and Hokum
The sad specter of deception that is haunting my alma mater, Notre Dame, these days brings to mind another hoax, more disastrous by far than a college football hero’s “imaginary girlfriend.” The nation is about to celebrate (or not) the tenth anniversary of Colin Powell’s infamous testimony before the United Nations Security Council, delivered on…
From Under the Rubble…Nominations and Their Discontents
Twenty-four years ago this month, I got a call from Paul Weyrich, the fabled conservative leader. George H. W. Bush, had just nominated Senator John Tower to be Secretary of Defense, and Paul was going to testify against him. “Chris, come over to the hearings tomorrow, will you?” Paul asked. “I’m going to need some…
From Under the Rubble….The Benign Rendition Meets Reality
The Advent shootings at Sandy Hook School shocked the country’s conscience, and the grief that followed was genuine and widespread. However, by virtually unanimous consent, one primordial cause of the massacre has been conveniently kept from public view. Instead, we’ve gotten propaganda. For the Left, after all, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste,…
