R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
Articles by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
TYRRELL: Field of study or field of play?
What is your vision of a university? Is it the classic vision with profs walking the ivy-lined pathways, their books under their arms? Perhaps they wear tweed coats and smoke pipes - not the lady profs, but the men. The ladies dress accordingly, and maybe they smoke pipes. All pore over their books for hours and impart their knowledge to a select body of students. Published September 1, 2010
TYRRELL: Holes for radicals
They are beginning to die out, or at least retire. So long, suckers. Surely the Clintons, Sen. Jean-Francois Kerry, Al Gore and dozens of others who presented themselves as reasonable alternatives to the radicals of the 1960s thought they were suckers. I thought about all of them this week as problems mounted for Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks thief. Published August 25, 2010
TYRRELL: Our incompetent president
It is becoming apparent for all to see that a man who made his name as a community organizer does not have the skills to be president of these United States. Maybe he could develop the requisite skills as a governor. Possibly he could develop such skills were he to sit in the Senate for a couple of terms. Yet there are delicate sensitivities, the ability to listen, to stick by your guns, occasionally to remain reticent. These are the fundamentals of a leader, and President Obama has demonstrated that he lacks all of them, most notably reticence. I think it is clear even to official Washington that Mr. Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed. Published August 18, 2010
TYRRELL: Paul Krugman, comic genius
The other day, New York Times columnist (and Nobel laureate, though he has yet to be found guilty of plagiarism or fabrication) Paul Krugman indulged in one of my favorite pastimes. He engaged in vituperation. He affected a superior pose and lamented that so many of the other superior types had been taken in by mere hucksters. Alas. Published August 11, 2010
TYRRELL: No mosque
There is an awful lot of blowzy thought swirling around the proposed mosque to be raised two blocks from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. Frankly, I doubt that at any other time in our history, such a debate would be taking place. People would know that when thugs intoning "Allahu Akbar" have slaughtered hundreds of innocent Americans on American soil, it is inappropriate to raise a mosque nearby. Published August 4, 2010
TYRRELL: Modified left-wing hangout
The other day in the Wall Street Journal, my friend Fred Barnes deposited a few thoughts on journalism provoked by the discovery of a mother lode of left-wing bigotry, screeds and semiliterate gibbering. He hastened to tell his readers that there was no conspiracy behind the journalists' "tilt" to the left, but rather, "The media disproportionately attracts people from the liberal arts background who tend, quite innocently, to be politically liberal." Then he filed a caveat, noting that "hundreds of journalists have gotten together, on an online listserv called JournoList, to promote liberalism and liberal politicians at the expense of traditional journalism." Published July 28, 2010
TYRRELL: To escape, perchance to read
It is that time of year when we depart for summer vacation. We head for the woods and mountains. Unless we planned to visit the Gulf, we head for the beach. Oh, what the hell. Even if we planned to visit the Gulf, let us head for the beaches. All the beaches I have seen there look pretty clean. So let us hit the beaches there, too. It is cheap! America is a vast continental country, and so we have various locales to infest during summertime vacation. Published July 20, 2010
TYRRELL: A curious crowd
Well, well, well - now it appears that even Soviet - strike that! - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is afflicted by the general mediocrity of the moment. There was never any reason to doubt that the Soviet grasp of the third-rate and meretricious should not survive into the Russian renaissance. A Zil, the cumbersome Soviet limousine, is still a Zil - and no one ever buys a Russian computer if there is one or a Russian hamburger. Published July 7, 2010
TYRRELL: Observing Obama
It was precisely Feb. 4, 2009, when I broke my self-imposed rule. It was not a very old rule, but it was serious. I had told myself I would not criticize the new president of the United States, Barack Obama - at least not for a few more months. But I slipped up. I could not completely swallow the fact that a community-action leader with almost no experience at the national level had become president. Published June 23, 2010
TYRRELL: A marriage proposal
The campaign to overturn California's Proposition 8 in the courts is a perfect example of one of my most deeply held findings. Check that. Two of my most deeply held findings. Published June 16, 2010
TYRRELL: Liberals in limbo
The declining state of the American newspaper apparently warms a lot of hearts. Polls tell us about the general public's disrelish for Congress. Equally disrelished are journalists and newspapers. Frankly, I sympathize. The American journalist is an odd creature. Most are as arrogant and provincial as the average American college professor. Curiously, many journalists even look like university professors, especially journalists from the major liberal newspapers. Published June 3, 2010
TYRRELL: America’s turning point
Owing to the promotion tour for my new book, "After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Published May 27, 2010
TYRRELL: The Taranto Principle vindicated again
The exposure of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal as a hoaxer boasting of a nonexistent record of service in the Vietnam War is a splendid example of what is known as the Taranto Principle. Someday, the Taranto Principle will be taught in all the journalism schools, assuming one or two survive the present detumescence of journalism. Formulated by the inimitable Wall Street Journal editorialist James Taranto, the principle posits that when the liberal mainstream press indulges a liberal politician's deceits or fails to hold the politician accountable for his misbehavior, it encourages the politician to ascend to a higher level of misbehavior. Published May 21, 2010
TYRRELL: The Times Square surprise
As we read the news about this Pakistani jackal who admits to planning a cowardly assault on hundreds of innocent people in New York's Times Published May 7, 2010
TYRRELL: Liberals’ vexation with reality
The liberals hate the middle class. There. I said it, and I am glad. Once again, I am a truth teller, in this case speaking truth to stone heads. So certain am I of the truth of my asseveration that I honestly doubt any liberal will take issue with me. Can you imagine a liberal coming forward and saying: "Wrong Tyrrell! I love the middle class." Well, I guess I can imagine it because liberals are effortless liars. Yet what specifically about the middle class might the liberals adduce to demonstrate their affection? The middle class' sobriety? Hard work? Love of country? Love of liberty? Published April 30, 2010
TYRRELL: Bill the Tea Party basher
Not so long ago, there arose on the American political scene something called the "angry left." It was an indignant group of ritualistic liberals whose appearance, the mainstream media apprised us, augured well for Democratic victory in 2008, and so it did. The angry left turned out the vote for the Prophet Obama. At the time, do you recall any public figure on the right stepping forward and warning against possible violence from the indignados of the angry left? Did, say, the Honorable Newt Gingrich step forward at a conservative forum, say the Heritage Foundation, and remind his fellow Americans of the bombings of government buildings, the burning of university libraries, the robbing of banks by angry leftists in years gone by? I cannot recall any such warnings from any conservative eminence. Published April 23, 2010
TYRRELL: After the hangover
Throughout my new book, "After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery," I posit a series of observations provoked by the liberal media's pronouncement after the 2008 elections that conservatism is dead. We conservatives have been hearing this claim on a regular basis since modern American conservatism's birth in the 1950s and even after the Reagan revolution reshaped mainstream American politics according to conservative values. Published April 20, 2010
TYRRELL: Liberal versus conservative
The pro-abortion lobby cannot be happy about a law that has just been passed and signed in faraway Nebraska. There anti-abortion forces must have clout. The law bans most abortions 20 weeks after conception on the basis of "fetal pain." Thus the Nebraskan pro-life advocates are saying that the suffering of a fetus is at least as important as the suffering of a chicken at a poultry processing plant or of a stray dog picked up by the animal control authorities. For liberalism this could mean still more liberal crack-up, as sympathizers for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other advocates of animal rights are put in the awkward position of contemplating the pain suffered by that biological inconvenience that civilized Americans still call a fetus. If they contemplate with sufficient intelligence, they might conclude that a fetus has rights. Published April 16, 2010
TYRRELL: Rhetorical attacks, or worse?
The increasing static in the air between Kabul and the White House brings to mind other dicey episodes in American diplomacy. Even dealing with allies can be tricky. Recall Charles de Gaulle. He was heartburn for five American presidents. Even Winston Churchill could be difficult, and he was half-American. He could be a trial for Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, particularly when the question of the British Empire and the future of its colonies was on the table. Published April 9, 2010
TYRRELL: Huffingtonian conservatives liberals just love
Washington - A major proposition that I advance in a book that will be published later this month, After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery, is that there exists an odious subgroup of conservatives who since the beginning of the conservative movement have made their way to prominence in the mainstream media by a cheap act. They disparage with great melodrama other conservatives. Liberals love it - and for a while love the disparagers. In the late 1990s Arianna Huffington exploited this instrument of self-promotion brazenly. For several years David Frum has been doing it haltingly, even timorously. However, in the last two weeks he has been pulling a Huffington with unusual boldness. Published April 1, 2010
