R. Emmett Tyrrell

WASHINGTON -- This week I am going to do something unusual. I am going to enter into a conversation with another columnist. Doing so was not so unusual a few decades back. Bill Buckley and James Jackson Kilpatrick did it when provoked, and it was always interesting. But today columnists are godlike figures. They communicate solely with Mount Olympus, and the result is often a bit tedious.  

WASHINGTON – This political campaign has already become too long and too arduous for campaigners and voters alike. Dare I say it? Politics as practiced in America is in danger of becoming a health hazard. I can see it now. There may well develop a movement among forward-lookers to limit the length of campaigns. You doubt me? Think of what the forward-lookers did to cigarette smoking. 

WASHINGTON -- August is upon us, and it is time to change the subject from the hype of presidential politics to the hype of international sports. No, not the hype of international soccer -- the scam of that racket is well-known. Let us turn to the hype of the Olympic competition.  

WASHINGTON — Race is what you make of it. For me I have made race a part of what social scientists once called the "melting pot," by which they meant that differences -- including ethnicity and race -- were all melted down into one great variegated country called America. There might be different heritages and different sub-cultures mixed into the American melting pot, but once mixed together we…

LONDON – A week after the historic Brexit referendum I attended what we might call its sequel. As Americans will recall, on June 23 all of Great Britain's bien-pensants ever so unctuously voted (SET ITAL) against (END ITAL) Brexit. That is to say they voted against leaving the EU. They lost 52 percent to 48 percent. The outcome was a bit of a surprise, but they lost fair and square. Thus, a week…

I see that CNN is calling upon the good offices of Mr. Potato Head to refute Donald Trump's evisceration of Hillary Clinton in his speech last Wednesday. Mr. Potato Head is very indignant that Peter Schweizer has written a book, "Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich," demonstrating that a pattern of corruption exists in…

The Boston Marathon, San Bernardino and now Orlando. It goes on and on, as Donald Trump might say. And it will continue to worsen, as Trump has already said. He is the most prescient campaigner in this race for the presidency. Hillary Clinton made progress Monday when she enunciated the words "radical Islamism," words that she thitherto refused to utter and her old friend and boss President…

A couple of weeks ago I heard the National Symphony perform Shostakovich’s symphony commemorating war and revolution, his Symphony 11. There was not much lyricism to it, not even a dulcet tune one could leave the symphony hall whistling. It was all ominous rumbling and groaning, with the tympani madly thundering away. Nonetheless, it was very affecting. After all, this 1957 work was about Russia…

The Taranto Principle strikes again. Dr. Tom Frieden, the Director of the Center for Disease Control, has just slammed headlong into the Taranto Principle. No wonder this smart, talented doctor is wandering around staggered at repeated calls to resign, calls coming from everyone from Fox’s Bill O’Reilly to members of Congress and a growing crowd beyond.

As the tents were coming down at McPherson Square, the dead rats and mice being retrieved, the urine and feces and filthy bedding disposed of by District of Columbia employees dressed in hazardous-materials suits like their contemporaries at Fukushima, I thought of the left-wing press. You see, I read the left-wing press. Not the urban throwaway rags, but I read The Nation, The Progressive,…

So what happens when you put the likes of David Frum, Bruce Bartlett and now apparently Jim Manzi - pseudo-conservatives with a penchant for criticizing Republicans and other conservatives all in the same place? You have the makings of a New York Times hit piece on conservatism. In the April 27 issue of the Times, a story in its Style section of all places by Patricia Cohen, singled out and…

On Friday, NewsBusters editor-at-large Brent Baker noted that the Freedom Alliance was strongly refuting allegations by blogger and radio host Debbie Schlussel that the veterans charity organization founded by Oliver North and actively promoted by radio host Sean Hannity was a "huge scam."Upon an "exhaustive investigation," Tim Mak of FrumForum.com concluded in a March 19 post that there is "…

Conservative publisher R. Emmett Tyrrell gave readers of the Washington Times his endorsement of the latest book by MRC president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell, "Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, But Conservatives Will." From his December 4 op-ed:"Whitewash" is one of the most important books I have read about the Clintons' relationship with the press, and I…