R. Emmett Tyrrell

WASHINGTON -- The enormous outpouring of affection for Queen Elizabeth II has recently demonstrated to the world that monarchy is not dead. Now attention will turn to King Charles III, and we shall see how he will do. As I intimated last week, I think he will do very well. I said his initial speech to his subjects and to the world was “brilliant.”

WASHINGTON -- I met King Charles III when he was but the prince of Wales on the evening of Nov. 2, 2005. I was the guest of President George W. Bush, and he invited me to the White House perhaps to demonstrate to the future British King that though Great Britain had a much older Spectator, America had its own Spectator, and it was read in the White House. His wife, Laura,…

WASHINGTON -- Back in the days when George H.W. Bush resided in the White House, he told me rather cryptically that I would be getting an invitation to the White House. A few days later I had luncheon with his head of the CIA, Bob Gates, one of the brightest lights that I have ever known in government. Bob wasted no time getting down to business. He told me of his concern that the Russians,…

WASHINGTON – Have you been following the massacres in America? It would be difficult to miss them. By the time I finish this column, and you have read it, maybe another 20 Americans will have succumbed to mass murder. There is, in a country composed of a mix of practical people and idealists, the urgent felt need to do something to end the killing. We are today stuck on the idea of gathering…

WASHINGTON -- There are some 400 million guns in private hands in America. Possibly I exaggerate. Let us say there are only 350 million guns in private hands in America. That still means there are more guns than citizens in America. It is going to take a lot of cops to gather those weapons up. The next time you hear a progressive urging the defunding of police, show him or her these figures.…

WASHINGTON -- In the good old days, when the liberals flourished, they undertook many grand designs. Some actually worked, for instance, the interstate highway system that now girdles America. The Cold War was another liberal idea. It worked, at least at first, before the liberals went wobbly and the conservatives and independents had to come in and finish the liberals' work for them. Of…

Last week, the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that outlawed state anti-abortion laws and federalized an issue that, for all but the last 50 years of our history, was decided by the states. Critics falsely claim that Roe “legalized” abortion, when pre-1973 abortion was legal in the states where a majority of the population resided. It is now falsely…

WASHINGTON — Take a break from the news. From the stories of war in Ukraine, slaughter of schoolchildren in Texas and mayhem against minorities in Buffalo, New York. Turn your attentions at least temporarily to consider Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee, celebrating her 70th year on the throne. Did you see those gorgeous pictures of the royal family across the front page of most of the…

Once again, it has happened in plain daylight. A mentally sick barbarian laid his paws on military-grade instruments of war, and he went to war against innocent people. Recently, it was Black people because they were Black, I assume. This time, it was children because they were children or defenseless or they had parents who drove them to school. Who knows? Doubtless, there have been lesser…

WASHINGTON -- The day after Robby Mook, the head of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for the presidency, implicated her at the top of a conspiracy to link Donald Trump in 2016 with a Russian bank, I could find no mention of it in the leading newspapers of the Republic, save The Wall Street Journal. The Journal covered Mook's testimony in a federal courtroom quite well.

CHICAGO -- I am in the Windy City; why is not Washington called the Windy City or the Windiest City? I came with my wife to attend a meeting of the fabled Federalist Society. She is a member of the Society and will participate with all the other assembled lawyers. I shall, for a change, merely listen. I was raised in Chicago, where I have many happy memories. Actually, I made my first public…

Washington — I do not go to the movies. Oh, I go to reruns of “The Godfather,” “The Godfather: Part II” and “The Godfather: Part III.” (There was a “Godfather: Part III,” was there not?) I got a little tired of all those Italians eating pasta and killing each other. Seriously, I was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, and I grew up with the children of mafiosi. To this day, I am amazed at how…

Washington — April, the great poet T.S. Eliot has tried to tell us, is the cruelest month of the year, and yet we continue to go out without our raincoats. Many pedestrians even forget their windbreakers. What about the fate of the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, the Moskva? A stray cigarette was presumably tossed on the floor of one of the ship's secured ammunition rooms and kaboom, the…

Washington -- I see that President Calvin Coolidge is in the news, along with his sidekick Warren Gamaliel Harding. Warren was a mediocrity's mediocrity and was long held to be the worst president of modern times. That was until Jimmy Carter became president and then Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. After Joe's term, I think we shall retire the trophy.