R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

TYRRELL: The book on Obama

Supposedly, this White House has just made a furious attempt to sink a book, "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President" by Ron Suskind, which came out Sept. 20. Jay Carney, the White House spinmeister, spoke ill of it. Numerous former White House staffers spoke ill of it. Mr. Carney said "one passage seems to be lifted almost entirely from Wikipedia." Why would a respected writer want to do that? I suspect that the White House is going to be as effective in sinking Mr. Suskind as it has been in keeping President Obama's poll numbers lofty.

October 5, 2011

TYRRELL: Liberalism always goes too far

One of the causes that has brought the great and worthy movement of liberalism to its present state of decrepitude has been remarked upon in this column many times before: Liberalism always goes too far. Even in the case of a noble impulse, it goes too far. Public events in recent days in that magnificent monument to liberalism, San Francisco, show us once again the example of liberalism over the edge.

September 28, 2011

TYRRELL: Not knowing when to say ‘when’ on taxes

It is clear from the way President Obama has been talking about the federal budget recently and about taxation since he came to office that all the money Americans earn belongs to the federal government. The key words in this conversation are "tax expenditures." President Obama has lost a lot in tax expenditures and he wants more of those tax expenditures back. He can spend that money, he believes, more wisely than the citizenry - that is to say - you and me.

September 21, 2011

TYRRELL: ‘Mission accomplished’

We are preparing to vamoose Camp Victory just outside of Baghdad. There were once 505 bases for American troops sprinkled around Iraq at the height of our involvement, from whence an American army went out to pacify the bloodthirsty hordes. Now we are down to some 40 bases, and shortly there will be none at all. Perhaps one or two headquarters will remain for a skeleton force of Americans training Iraqi police or military.

September 14, 2011

TYRRELL: DSK looking gauche in Paris

Readers of this column will remember that when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was taken off an Air France flight in May just as it was about to vamoose for Paris, I was suspicious. The story and circumstances of his adventure with the chambermaid, Nafissatou Diallo, in the Sofitel hotel kept changing. In the meantime, he was accorded the indignity of the "perp walk." He was sent to Rickers Island, a veritable hellhole. He got up on the morning of May 14 as one of the world's most distinguished public servants. He was head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and apparently about to become the Socialist Party's front-runner for president of France. He retired that evening a convicted felon in the eyes of almost anyone familiar with his story, and I suspect he slept badly.

September 7, 2011

TYRRELL: Joe Biden, presidential candidate

When Vice President Joe Biden rolls into a room to talk politics, frankly, I am ready to laugh. He is, for me, the gaffable Joe Biden. Remember when he told the perky Katie Couric that during the great stock market crash of 1929, President Franklin Roosevelt immediately "got on television" to reassure the American people? Joe apparently reassured Miss Couric; yet others in the audience who knew their history and recognized his gaffe got a huge laugh at Joe's expense. The president in 1929 was, of course, Herbert Hoover, and there was no television.

August 31, 2011

TYRRELL: Ryan withdraws

Alas, we lost a most desirable candidate for the White House this week, one who is not charismatic, did not write (or have someone else write) his memoir, has displayed no jump shot in public, and did not leave important documents on his desk while gallivanting around the country in campaign mode and heading for vacation on Martha's Vineyard. In the first instance, I am talking about Rep. Paul Ryan. In the second, I am talking about President you-know-who. Since the day he was inaugurated, he has been campaigning for his second term, all the while expressing ambivalence about wanting a second term. That is nonsense. He is living rent-free and has that big airplane to fly about the country in.

August 24, 2011

TYRRELL: Perry right where Obama wrong

There is squabbling in the White House. President Obama's approval rating has dipped to unprecedented lows in the polls, and he has not a clue what to do about it. Within the president's team there are the pragmatists led by David Plouffe and William M. Daley, who favor small gestures. I mean really small gestures. They would favor free-trade agreements, possibly with Gabon, perhaps the Maldives. They also favor improved patent protections for investors, assuming they can find investors, and something about Michele's garden. At least I thought it was about Michele's garden. At any rate, it was small. Maybe they were advocating growing cherry tomatoes.

August 17, 2011

TYRRELL: A growing bipartisan consensus on Obama

Who on Aug. 18, 2010 - almost one year ago - said, "I now think it is clear even to official Washington that President Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed"? Yes, it was I, and I threw the entire weight of the American Spectator behind that asseveration, putting both Jimmy and Barry on the cover.

August 10, 2011

TYRRELL: The long war over the budget

We are engaged in a long war - actually two long wars. The first and most commonly accepted of our wars is the long war against Islamofascists. It is not a war against vast armies. Comparatively speaking, it is just a war against a handful of thugs, but they want to strike at our heart - wherever we are ill-prepared - and if they can, they will cause incalculable destruction. This we discovered Sept. 11, 2001. We are on the hem of wiping out al Qaeda, but there are other thugs waiting. We must be vigilant against them. It will be a long war.

August 3, 2011

TYRRELL: Adolf and Anders

Think of Anders Behring Breivik, the man who bombed a government building in Norway before proceeding coldbloodedly to massacre scores of defenseless young people on a secluded island several miles away, as an Adolf Hitler of one. The first Adolf Hitler was a Hitler to millions. He captured an entire nation and terrified the world for years.

July 27, 2011

TYRRELL: Faith in the Constitution

It seems Rep. Michele Bachmann is under increased scrutiny for her religious views even as she climbs ever higher in the presidential polls. With Tea Party support, she is now No. 2 in the Republican polls, though she has only been in the race a short time. The numero uno, former Gov. Mitt Romney, is himself the victim of gentler bigotry for his religious views. He is a Mormon. No, I did not say moron. I said Mormon.

July 20, 2011

TYRRELL: The Kultursmog against Murdoch

Do we need any other evidence that the Kultursmog exists and that it is international - at least in the English-speaking world - than the fact that the biggest news story in the United Kingdom today is also the biggest news story here? I have in mind the telephone-hacking story about News of the World reporters in London listening in on private conversations and possibly bribing Scotland Yard. The Kultursmog is that set of ideas and tastes that are utterly polluted by left-wing values and carried by the liberal news media to pollute peoples' minds.

July 13, 2011

TYRRELL: Rumsfeld and Kissinger memoirs worth a read

It is summer and time to read books. I recall the late editor of the editorial page of The Washington Post, the sainted Meg Greenfield, making fun of the idea of summer books, but I have long filed her quip away as a quip that was quipless. She could read books almost anytime she wanted, but busy people read when they have a special opportunity, and during summer break, I would like to remind them of good books to read. This summer there is an abundance of them.

July 8, 2011

TYRRELL: The Gipper and the ‘special relationship’

The other morning, I wandered down to Grosvenor Square to see the July 4th unveiling of a statue of President Reagan despite reports that only a handful of people would be there. That invaluable piece of intelligence had been handed down by the Honorable Louis B. Susman, our ambassador to the United Kingdom, who was busy as a director of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team during the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was staring down the Soviets with his befuddling mixture of amiability and steely resolve that astoundingly "ended the Cold War without firing a shot." That is how then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher memorably put it. She was not astounded, nor was President Nixon or other hawkish Cold Warriors from the era.

July 7, 2011

TYRRELL: J. Gordon Coogler Award rescinded

Followers of this column have noticed that something is amiss. They have looked to it every week for months with increased frustration. Many have gone back to the March, April, May, and June issues of the American Spectator and pored over every page, but all was for naught. They have not been able to find a trace of the J. Gordon Coogler Award for the Worst Book of the Year, and they know that there were many promising candidates in 2010 for this hallowed recognition. The New York Review of Books was full of them.

June 30, 2011

TYRRELL: Presidential race made easy

In the weeks ahead, I shall be in Europe to speak on American politics. What will I say to old Europe? Well, I shall give them my broad view of American politics and end with the present election cycle in which I believe Barack Obama will be retired to private life, though he cannot really conceive of private life. He will continue his public life as he has for all his adult life. That is how Democrats live. He will be a community organizer to the world, as Bill Clinton has become, in the words of MSNBC, "President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon."

June 21, 2011

TYRRELL: The charismatic Michele Bachmann

So there are two. Two pulchritudinous ones, that is. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin are very beautiful, and the feminists ask us, "So what?" Well, they never say "so what" when an attractive male, usually a Democrat, comes on stage. They call him charismatic. Mrs. Bachmann and Mrs. Palin are sufficiently charismatic for me, and both have raised families. Mrs. Bachmann had five children of her own and 23 foster children before entering public life. That is the proper sequence of events: Raise a family, enter public life.

June 15, 2011

TYRRELL: Bill Clinton Syndrome

They call it BCS, Bill Clinton Syndrome, and it has broken out anew in New York City and Washington, where it was first discovered. As elaborated upon in scholarly detail in the now-famous "Starr Report: The Official Report of the Independent Counsel's Investigation of the President," BCS strikes powerful figures, usually male, who experience lewd compulsions of an over-powering nature, generally in the presence of technology, often the telephone, occasionally a smartphone or even a computer, and usually when they are alone or behind closed doors with a woman of inferior rank.

June 8, 2011

TYRRELL: An imposter’s complaint

Here we are in the afterglow of another Memorial Day. The flags and the bunting are being put away. The memories endure for another year of our honored dead, of the brave wounded, of the veterans - some grizzled, some still youthful - all deserving their country's gratitude. Then there are the imposters, who often from zilch have created military honors, whole careers, records of heroism and splendid triumphs. What wretches.

June 1, 2011