R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

The delusions and collusions of the Hon. Kerry

There is a whiff of the absurd about former Secretary of State Jean-Francois Kerry's recent "aggressive yet stealthy mission" to New York City. "Aggressive yet stealthy" is how the Boston Globe described his mission, though to serious observers of this elongated buffoon the diplomatic mission was also comic. His return to diplomacy was as comic as his episodes of hang-gliding while running for president, mad bicycling jaunts across Europe in what looked like his underpants, and recreational surfing — all while ostensibly on duty.

May 8, 2018

Climbing the health care mountain

Milton Friedman was not only a brilliant economist — a Nobel laureate in fact — but he was a gifted writer. In his 1962 book, "Capitalism and Freedom," he presciently explained how health care costs were going to leap out of control over the next decades. Sure enough they did. They multiplied from spending roughly one of every 20 dollars on health care in the 1960s to spending roughly one of every 5 dollars on healthcare today.

May 1, 2018

The angry left and its adversaries

Has it been noted that the country's political disagreements are becoming increasingly violent? About 15 years ago "the angry left" appeared on the scene, and its indignant members got a lot of attention from the media. The enormous volume of press attention signaled the media's manifest approval, if sotto voce. Next came the Occupiers' movement, and again these ruffians came with the media's approval, at least sotto voce. Then gun-toting cowards began shooting people for humanitarian reasons, and the media did not know what to think. The assassination attempt on House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and his colleagues comes to mind.

April 24, 2018

Obama’s foreign policy team react hysterically to free-spirited Trump

William Casey was my lawyer. One day I came into my office and found a large man sitting on my desk. I greeted him amiably, and he greeted me amiably. Yet, he was still siting on my desk. At some point in our meeting we settled into a more conventional seating arrangement, and Bill began to tell me about the world as he analyzed it at the time, the late 1970s. I then made two decisions. If Bill agreed to be my lawyer I could take on anyone. What is more, he knew prodigious amounts about the world. He had brought charts and maps. He would be my foreign policy adviser.

April 17, 2018

Larry Kudlow to the rescue

The markets are on edge. Yet, then again, inflation is low, employment is high — in the case of blacks and Latinos historically high — and growth is healthy and looking to become very healthy. Dare we say it, robust? The reason for the edginess in the markets is that President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on Communist China and threatens to impose still more tariffs. There is talk of a trade war. That should worry any champion of free markets.

April 10, 2018

Picasso was a Neanderthal. Wasn’t he?

There have been some very auspicious developments in human evolutionary studies that ought to allow us a welcome respite from my usual political ramblings in this space.

April 3, 2018

Partisanship and John Brennan’s plot

What passes for the current wisdom today contains a great deal of solemn slop. Yet there are some solemnities in the current wisdom that one assumes are legitimate. For instance, it is said that today partisanship is more intense than it has been since — I suppose — the Civil War, or at least since the days of Sen. Joe McCarthy. Americans on the left, the right, and those treading water in the middle cannot agree on anything. Well, I would have said this was a bit far-fetched until last week. That was when I experienced partisanship for myself.

March 27, 2018

Goodbye, Andrew McCabe, and no more tears

Last week, if you follow the soap opera drama that the mainstream media has orchestrated against the Trump administration, you got your money's worth. As the week progressed Andrew McCabe, the departing deputy FBI director, was almost frantic. He was running from office to office at the Justice Department in a frenzy to save his pension before retiring.

March 20, 2018

#MeToo, the Hillary and Monica edition

There is a growing debate on the left over whose side to take in the simmering controversy between Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton or the Clintons (plural), depending on how long Hillary remains loyal to Bill or, come to think of it, how long Bill remains loyal to Hillary. Truth be known, she might be in even hotter water than Bill at this moment.

March 13, 2018

Why America will not become more prosperous with a trade war

President Donald Trump has had a splendid first year in office. He has the economy moving again and at a healthy pace, 2.6 percent in the most recent quarter. Unemployment is down, the stock market is up and the economic signs are mostly healthy.

March 6, 2018

Me and my garbage man

It has been at least 10 years since I stopped by American conservatism's largest and gaudiest national jamboree, the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC.

February 27, 2018

Professor Amy Wax and the Brownshirts on campus

Recently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in league with a professor at the University of San Diego Law School made bold to write an essay for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her name is Amy Wax, and I have no idea what her politics might be. That she has gained tenure at Penn suggests that she is a liberal, but that is about all I know about her. If she were teaching when I was in college back in the 1960s she almost certainly would have been a liberal. There were very few conservatives back then.

February 20, 2018

Following the Clintons’ final con

For years I have been saying that the Clintons lie when they do not have to, and they tell a gigantic whopper when a little white lie would be perfectly adequate. This time-honored observation explains many of their past run-ins with the law.

February 13, 2018

Pope Francis falls behind the Episcopalians

I have never met the pope, but I have followed his activities sedulously, as might be expected of a Roman Catholic. Pope Francis is an agent for change in his 2,000-year-old church, change in what Catholics believe and change in how they worship. Notwithstanding my never having met him, my guess is that he was a bit embarrassed by a decision announced recently by the Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. The Episcopalians got the jump on him in the realm of change.

February 6, 2018

Scandal keeps the Clintons in tight embrace

"Scandalous" — that is the name that Fox News has chosen for a multipart documentary that Fox is airing on Sunday evenings. If you missed it this week, watch it in the weeks to come. It promises a lot of har-hars.

January 30, 2018

The Democratic Party of 2018

As the Democrats grow increasingly ravenous to have a shot at the presidency of President Donald Trump they are beginning to train their guns on the front-runners for the nomination.

January 23, 2018

Donald Trump’s salty language is not to everyone’s liking, particularly to liberals

Last week the headlines should have abounded with the year's good news. It was the economy: GDP up some 3 percent and for the last quarter nearly 4 percent, unemployment down to a 17-year low and black unemployment at the lowest level since such statistics were compiled. The stock market was soaring, up some 42 percent since Donald Trump was elected, and inflation was low. It was the best Christmas season in years.

January 16, 2018

Trump, put up the immigration border wall

Of all the Judeo-Christian virtues, the one that utterly baffles me is humility.

January 9, 2018

Conservative Donald Rieck of American Spectator dies, Ed Feulner leaves Heritage

My friend and colleague, Donald Rieck, died late last week in an automobile accident. He leaves two charming and very young children. He also leaves many friends throughout the conservative movement, and shocked colleagues at The American Spectator.

January 2, 2018

Donald Trump’s very good year

Naples — Here I am in Naples, Florida ending the year in the sun and actually coterminous with a golf course. I, of course, will not indulge in the sport, for I find it too leisurely. Actually I do not even consider it a sport. I am in agreement with my old friend, the great basketball coach Bob Knight.

December 26, 2017