R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

Absurdity meter overload

My absurdity meter has blown up. The current news has been simply too much for this frail device, which I attach to my television set to give me a daily reading of the news' absurdity content.

September 18, 2009

Buchanan refights World War II

Sept. 1 was the 70th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's blitzkrieg into Poland and the beginning of World War II. Fifty million people died. Western Europe was devastated. Eastern Europe was more thoroughly devastated and subjected to communist tyranny that for decades seemed invincible and a threat to the Free World, which remained armed and vigilant.

September 11, 2009

Mark Sanford’s somnambulism

Why is the governor of South Carolina still a national news story?

September 4, 2009

A carousel of incompetence

According to the Gallup Poll, the Prophet Obama's job approval is at its lowest since his coronation. It began at 70 percent. Now it is 51 percent. Equally glum, his disapproval rating has climbed from 11 percent to 42 percent.

August 28, 2009

A prince of a fellow

It took cancer more than a year to kill Bob Novak, and actually this was the fifth cancer that tried to kill him. Let that stand as a testimonial to how tough this guy was.

August 19, 2009

From the grisly to the frivolous

Allow me a word of encouragement to our president, Barack Obama. Mr. Obama, you are doing just fine. You wanted to set a new tone in Washington, and you have. You wanted an open debate on health care, and you have it. Admittedly, the tone is astoundingly rancorous, and not incidentally, your approval ratings continue to decline.

August 14, 2009

The Al Franken shtick

The Minnesota Supreme Court has now ended months of vote fraud and other assorted acts of skullduggery to pronounce Al Franken winner of the state's 2008 senatorial race over Republican Norm Coleman. The process was unseemly, and it is conceivable that the court's justices merely acted out of civic pride. They did not want Minnesota's U.S. Senate races to attain the sort of notoriety attached to aldermanic elections in Chicago or presidential elections in Iran.

July 3, 2009

TYRRELL: ACLU talks too much

It was my old friend and mentor, Luigi Barzini, who asseverated, "Americans talk too much." He was sitting in the elegant library of his home in Rome.

May 29, 2009

TYRRELL: Evolution and fuel efficiency

This week, a 47-million-year-old fossil was put on display at New York's American Museum of Natural History. Scientists accorded the event enormous attention, as did the press.

May 22, 2009

TYRRELL: McAuliffe’s mischief

I see that my chum Terry McAuliffe will be in Virginia's June 9 Democratic primary competing for his party's gubernatorial nomination.

May 15, 2009

TYRRELL: The snickering of liberals

Is it possible that Justice David H. Souter has sensed what I have sensed in reading the liberals' dutiful adieus to him, their judicial Benedict Arnold? They are all snickering behind their hands.

May 8, 2009

TYRRELL: Masters of deception

Students of intelligence-gathering will tell you deception and outright lying are essential to the art.

May 1, 2009

TYRRELL: Obama’s world tour

Stop the presses! Finally, after half a century of staunch disagreement with Fidel Castro, I see the Cuban dictator has rendered a judgment with which I heartily agree.

April 24, 2009

TYRRELL: Precedent-breaking apologies

Another Democratic president has shattered precedent. Democratic politicians take great pride in shattering American precedents, and they do so with such regularity that it is surprising there are any precedents left to shatter, except, I guess, for the precedents Democrats establish on the ruins of earlier precedents.

April 17, 2009

TYRRELL: Another tax forgetter

It has happened again! Another Obama appointee has admitted to tax problems. Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius has admitted to irregularities in her tax returns extending over the past three years.

April 3, 2009

TYRRELL: Progress thwarted

Vindication is sweet! During last summer's Olympics, I wrote in this space that the high-tech swimming suits worn by competitive swimmers in the events and manufactured by Speedo with the assistance of NASA scientists were irrelevant to the sport and destined for further controversy.

March 27, 2009

TYRRELL: Cap-and-trade promises disaster

Thank God winter is almost over. It has been another cold one. I hope Al Gore wore his hat and brought along his galoshes whenever he made an appearance against global warming. Better yet, I hope he scheduled his jeremiads in warmer climes, say, Miami Beach or Antigua.

March 20, 2009

TYRRELL: Sparking fond thoughts of Bill

Our nation's capital is filling with nouveau New Dealers, social engineers, men and women with a glint in the eye. All are anticipating the orgies.

March 13, 2009

TYRRELL: Rush to Rush

"Rush is the bloated face and drug-addled voice of the Republican Party," Paul Begala is quoted as saying in The Washington Post.

March 6, 2009

TYRRELL: ‘Listening tour’ echoes

I have been following Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's first foreign policy jaunt with my customary discernment in matters regarding the Clintons. Frankly I am very uncomfortable with her title, secretary of state.

February 27, 2009