The Reagan Revolution has been properly feted of late as its architect bid a final farewell to the field of battle. Given that one says nothing but good of the dead unless they were President, his critics have been remarkably quiet – largely limiting their contributions to suggestions that the Soviet Union would have collapsed [...]

After November 2nd, the Republican Party magically transformed itself from a group of white men smoking cigars at the country club to a mess of slack-jawed yokels with their eyes cast towards the sky looking for signs of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Analyses of the 2004 election made much of the fact that [...]

At a time when the principles of federalism are in disrepair, it is important to recall the centrality of these principles to our constitutional heritage and their intimate relationship with conservative thought. Today, of the two major political parties in the United States, it is the Republican Party that is identified with states’ rights. That [...]

April 15 is anathema to most Americans. This date is the Internal Revenue Service filing deadline for income taxes. The tax code, inaugurated in 1913, has been at the forefront of American politics since its inception. Something about the income tax is un-American. Maybe it’s the purported unfairness of it, professed by economic conservatives; maybe [...]

“We found that government can spend money but it can’t put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives; this is done by churches and synagogues and mosques and charities that warm the cold of life. A quiet river of goodness and kindness that cuts through stone.”
-President George W. Bush

During his [...]

But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene II

Often, when I discuss next year’s presidential election with my conservative friends, they seem assured that 2004 will [...]

In the spring of 2001, I placed an ad in the student paper at Brown giving “Ten Reasons Why Reparations For Slavery Is A Bad Idea – And Racist Too.” I thought it was a bad idea because it was being proposed 137 years after the fact, and that it was racist because it made [...]

The civil rights movement espoused an ideal that all Americans should embrace: the creation of a color-blind society in which persons are judged by their merits as individuals, not by their membership in a particular racial group. Thirty years later, the legacy of the civil rights movement is bitterly contested and America remains a color-conscious [...]

Blaming Iraq First
This summer retired General Wesley Clark appeared on Meet the Press to discuss his candidacy and evaluate the situation in Iraq. When asked to comment on possible intelligence failures, Clark traced them back to the earliest days of the war on terrorism: “I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and [...]

The following is an interview with Patrick J. Buchanan, the Editor of the American Conservative and the host of “Buchanan and Press” on MSNBC. He also writes a nationally syndicated column. He has served as an advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan and has run for president three times. In the 1990s, Buchanan became [...]