R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.

TYRRELL: A broad front for free speech

Why are conservatives and liberals not united in defending free speech? The estimable Bret Stephens in his Wall Street Journal column this week raises the question and suggests conservatives and liberals give the matter some thought.

February 20, 2009

TYRRELL: Wall Street wizards no more

The phenomenon of opulent Wall Street investment wizards contributing in large numbers to the Democratic Party, often to the left-wing of the Democratic Party, has until recent years struck me as perverse to the utmost.

February 13, 2009

TYRRELL JR.: Off to a stumbling start

Egads, it is going to be a long four years! It is only two weeks since the Prophet Obama's Inauguration, and already he has revived memories of Boy Clinton's first 100 days.

February 6, 2009

TYRRELL: Kristol-blue dissuasion

Let us put an end to the dark murmurings over why the New York Times did not renew its contract with its lone conservative columnist, Bill Kristol.

January 30, 2009

TYRRELL: Marketing to market

There is a vexed brouhaha going on between two of my favorite conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and Sen. Tom Coburn of the great state of Oklahoma. It has been caused by a mischief-maker by the name of Jeff Greenfield, now working apparently for CBS.

January 23, 2009

TYRRELL: Smoke gets in your Reich

'Tis the season when prestigious institutions give their annual awards, and with no further ceremony allow me to announce that the J. Gordon Coogler Committee has conferred its Worst Book of the Year Award on Nicholson Baker for "Human Smoke:

January 16, 2009

TYRRELL: It’s cold outside

If you are going out anytime over the next few months, may I suggest that you wear a hat? You might even buy earmuffs. We are experiencing yet another cold winter.

January 9, 2009

TYRRELL: Responding to missiles

Does anyone know the name of the National Public Radio interviewer who was so disdainful of Israel's ambassador to the United States on the morning of Dec. 31? I missed his name. I would like to give him an award for sarcasm, rudeness, and, well, controlled rage. Perhaps he would accept my shoes.

January 2, 2009

TYRRELL: Publishing fakery

The decline of the New York Times continues, alas and egad. On Monday the Times was duped by some scoundrel who sent the newspaper's Web site a rude e-mail about Caroline Kennedy, signed supposedly by Bertrand Delanoe, "Mayor of Paris."

December 26, 2008

TYRRELL: Good sports, great sports

It is now that time of year when I tune in on the exploits of the National Football League, not the criminal exploits or the soap opera exploits but the real sport of the game. The teams are fighting for berths in the playoffs and ultimately for the Super Bowl. Thus the play becomes more intense and daring. These are superb athletes. We must bear that in mind, despite their many brushes with the law and the fact that many of them make as much money as a Goldman Sachs executive, though more conspicuously.

December 19, 2008

TYRRELL: Memoir material

My agents report that President George W. Bush is even now contemplating a memoir. When it comes to writing a memoir, I humbly submit that even a commander in chief should take counsel from an editor in chief, especially if the editor in chief is an admirer.

December 12, 2008

TYRRELL: Recognizing crisis

There is a condign symmetry about this financial crisis. A government-induced crisis is getting a government-insured resolution.

November 28, 2008

TYRRELL: Interesting times again

Somewhere in his very interesting Journals 1952-2000, the late historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. erupts with the observation that history is unfailingly interesting. Over the years I delighted in disagreeing with Mr. Schlesinger, but on this I am in hearty accord. History is always interesting. Even when not much is happening, history is interesting.

November 21, 2008

TYRRELL: Pride after the blare

What a wonderful morn! Campaign '08 is a corpse. Step gently around it. Offer a gentle wave of the hand to those poor wretches over in the corner looking forlorn and lost. Those are the political junkies. They have awakened every day for almost two years eager for the electioneering fray:

November 7, 2008

TYRRELL: Reasons to vote for McCain

Though I cannot recall ever endorsing a presidential candidate I am going to do so in this column.

October 31, 2008

TYRRELL: Biden’s brain scan

So intense have the Republicans' suspicions of their Democratic rivals become in the last weeks of this presidential race that they are now accusing the delightful Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden, of withholding the results of his brain scans from his recently released medical records.

October 24, 2008

TYRRELL JR.: Crisis culpability

How is it that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has been badly damaged by this financial crisis while the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, is successfully presenting himself as a financial genius, capable of working Christ's miracle of the loaves and fishes on our economy?

October 17, 2008

TYRRELL: Palin vs. Biden

How is it that an attractive woman who has been involved in state and local government since the early 1990s without much controversy is now passed off in the media as an airhead?

October 10, 2008

TYRRELL: The Taranto principle

Years from now, in journalism schools, they will call it the "Taranto Principle." At least that is what they will call it, if they still have journalism schools years from now.

September 25, 2008

TYRRELL: Hypocrisy in the Kultursmog

In this election year, "change" has been the catnip of the liberals. It renders them blissful. Change will put an end to the dominance of American politics by the "Washington insiders." And the instrumentality of that "change" will be a first-term senator of unassailable probity, Sen. Barack H. Obama, who curiously enough began his career a decade ago in Chicago as a cog in the political machine of Mayor Richard Daley.

September 5, 2008