R. Emmett Tyrrell

WASHINGTON — “Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped — in his life, convictions and outlook on the world -- by reading and writing as Barack Obama," said Michiko Kakutani, the literary critic of the famed New York Times. Did you know this? Frankly, I did not know President Obama was so wedded to books and the printed word as to be compared to President Abraham…

WASHINGTON — For me the football season begins in mid-December (when everyone becomes serious) and ends at the Super Bowl (when everyone becomes deathly serious). This year it ended with the longest Super Bowl in history. Though I am the epitome of punctuality, I let the season go into the first overtime in Super Bowl history without turning off the television, so I could see whether President…

WASHINGTON — This is supposedly the week of multitudinous demonstrations in Washington, D.C. The hordes are getting more media attention than the hundreds of thousands of President-elect Donald Trump supporters who are also coming into town. Whether the demonstrations will be as multitudinous as anticipated by the media, I cannot say. Certainly, they are getting plenty of publicity already,…

In a column posted at NewsBusters on December 29, R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. relayed personal anecdotal evidence indicating that "This Christmas Season Was Different." Based on his interactions and observations, Tyrrell believes that 2016 marked a change in "the way we talk about what is a major holy day for the majority of the American people." In his experience, people this year were far more…

WASHINGTON — Around Thanksgiving time, I noticed portents of this Christmas season being different. I noticed it when people unbidden would wish me Happy Thanksgiving. There seemed to be a note of exultance in their greeting. Not everyone would say "Happy Thanksgiving," but enough did that it got me to wondering. Was this Thanksgiving different, and if so, would this Christmas be any different?

WASHINGTON — Recently, a voice of the conservative media did what he is supposed to do, to wit, tell the rest of the story. The mainstream media only tells America part of the story. They tell us how they perceive the world and leave it at that. This is why so much of recent American journalism — and indeed, history — is so unsatisfactory to sentient observers. Journalism and history are told…

WASHINGTON — Over the weekend some pathetic wretch — obviously a casualty of the Nov. 8 election — writing under the pen name Paul Farhi filed a column in the Washington Post lamenting that after an extensive search of the newspapers of this great country, he could hardly find any pro-Trump columnists. 

WASHINGTON — When I heard that Bob Dylan had received the Nobel Prize for literature, I was mildly surprised. He writes music -- popular music. As did George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, both of whom almost certainly wrote better music. I have nothing against Dylan's music, except that it was written by a scruffy young man who has remained a scruffy young man all his life. At least that is an…

WASHINGTON — Well, it is over! The most poisonous, slanderous, hate-filled American election of all time is now history, and the pity is that there is no historian living in this great Republic who is capable of doing it justice.  

WASHINGTON — As I have been saying, the sexual revolution of the 1960s is now over. We can thank Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton's gang of angry women (which Trump either knew or did not know years ago) for that. I think it is a contribution to the moral life of the republic, but I might be wrong.

LONDON — I am in jolly old London for a Spectator debate about America's presidential candidates, Donald Trump and What's Her Name. London is resplendent as ever, and at this point in the election cycle my wife is patrolling my behavior, lest I hazard our bank account by popping into Anderson & Sheppard to order another suit or seeking psychiatric refreshment.

WASHINGTON — Through the years, one of my favorite sallies against the Clintons has been referring to Hillary Clinton as "Bruno." At times, readers have asked, "Why do you call her Bruno?" It is because there has always been an atmosphere of thuggishness about her. Another way of putting it is, time and again, she acts as though the rule of law does not pertain to her -- for instance, on the…

WASHINGTON — Did you see the interview over the weekend of a listless and, apparently, exhausted Hillary Clinton? Supposedly she has recovered from last week's bout with pneumonia, but she could have fooled me. Call me a hypochondriac, but in my opinion her recovery is not going very well.  

WASHINGTON -- Pope Francis canonized Mother Teresa on Sunday. She was a celestial figure to many for sweating away in Calcutta, India, with "the poorest of the poor." By that oft-used term meant the poor for whom a government poverty line would be a luxury. Mother Teresa took in street urchins, the hopelessly sick and the dying -- lost souls who were at death's door.