There was a cartoon, many years back, in the New Yorker, of a man holding forth at a cocktail party, and declaring, with a sweep of self-assurance, “As Immanuel Kant once said—or perhaps it was Cap Weinberger.” I was mildly surprised when a friend, well schooled in matters literary, was herself surprised when I drew … Read more
Boston: only two hours away from me on the road, and yet I am almost never there. When I am let out, on furlough, from the People’s Republic of Amherst, I am usually in Washington or New York. Boston contains, for me, many colorful, beckoning friends; still there are these subtle hints, often cast up … Read more
We had intended to sound an alarm in public, and sure enough, we managed to produce, as Henry James would say, a “minor tremor of the public tail”: Five writers and professors joined in a symposium, in the journal First Things, on “The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics” (November 1996). I happened … Read more
Even Jim Lehrer was taken aback. He was “moderating,” if that was the word, the debate of the vice-presidential candidates, and he gave Jack Kemp the chance to elaborate on his response: Was it really the case that there were no distinctly moral issues bothering the American public, that the main issues vexing our lives … Read more
Editor’s note: Professor Arkes filed this story in October, when he was still hoping for the best but bracing for the worst. Cayman Islands December, 2010 Dear Eli: I gather, from your Dad, that you are working on a research paper in school, and that an idea was sparked when you found, in the attic … Read more
It was in the air already at the time of Jack Kennedy. We sensed that the principle was being planted, and it was only a matter of time for the implications to unfold: The Catholic politician would detach himself, become in effect a non-Catholic, and then with small but sure steps become the anti-Catholic in … Read more
An announcement in the public service: The demands of lead time now in magazines find us writing these columns well in advance of the date of publication, and the risk is that we may be overtaken by events. We are writing, for example, for this issue at the time of the Republican convention: Things may … Read more
It turns out that I had it mostly, but not entirely, right in an earlier column, when I suggested that Bob Dole was a version of Bertie Wooster, from the old stories by P.G. Wodehouse. The resemblance was in the cast of mind, and I suggested that Dole offered an example of what Bertie Wooster … Read more
The improbable cast of characters, gathered in a spacious set of rooms, resembled nothing so much as those old Olson & Johnson movies (such as Hellzapoppin’), with every attribute save that of the trapdoors flying open and the guns exploding out of context. But it was, under its more sober title, a meeting of the … Read more
Two of the most engaging students at Amherst—worldly, informed, sensible, savvy—rather surprised me when I made a comment in passing on the latest news of the day and they expressed a complete innocence: What was a “partial-birth abortion”? The hearings and debates had drawn a certain attention over several months, and the question had been … Read more
Among the notable surprises of 1995 were two pro-life judgments that emanated, from of all places, the federal courts. Both were in the Ninth Circuit on the West Coast. One opinion was written by Judge John Noonan, an accomplished scholar, and a powerful writer in the pro-life cause before he was appointed to the bench … Read more
It has been, as we used to say, the kind of political season that would strain the temper of even the Good Humor Man. How else to account for a recent show of testiness on the part of the editors of the Wall Street Journal, directed, of all things, to the pro-life movement. The editors … Read more
Don’t let that Kansas accent fool you; Bob Dole is really a version of Bertie Wooster, that improbable character invented by P. G. Wodehouse. Of course, Dole seems quite sober and anchored, with an edge of wry wit. Wooster was a flaky, upper-class twit, who was rendered functional in the world only through the artful … Read more
In Mel Brooks’s film History of the World, Part I, the king of France, before the Revolution, is walking on his estate, musket in hand, engaged in the diversion of skeet-shooting. But with a twist: When he says, “pull,” a lever is pulled, and the catapult hurls into the air not a clay pigeon… but … Read more
Something notable had apparently taken place in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, November 1. There had been a vote on abortion, evidently regarded all around as momentous—or in any event, a vote that seemed to set off, among the Democrats, the most extravagant flights of rhetoric in denouncing the measure, which passed nevertheless by … Read more
Morris Arkes, eighty-one, retired from running a shipping room and working his whole life with his hands, died in Chicago on September 28. Since November last, he had been in the hospital most of the time. He would be home for a few days, then back in the hospital for weeks, as his whole system … Read more
After the Battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln urged General Meade to press the attack on Lee’s Army before the Southern troops could make it back across the Potomac river into Virginia. But Meade held back, and the moment was lost. Meade telegraphed the President that at least the Union side could take satisfaction in “driving … Read more
The students, born in the 1970s, had little prospect of answering a query about a film made in the early 1950s. Still, there was a point to be made in putting the question: who had played the lead in the Jackie Robinson story? My students knew the legend of Jackie Robinson, but of course I … Read more
The news came in the first days of August, as a group of Diocesan pro-life leaders were assembling in Orlando: a federal judge had struck down a “ballot initiative”, approved by the voters of Oregon last November, the so-called Death with Dignity Age. The promoters of euthanasia had suffered a dramatic defeat in 1992, with … Read more
In a subcommittee of the House, the bill to ban the grisly “D&X” abortions passed its first hurdle in Congress. In a straight party line vote, seven Republican s voted to ban this procedure, which offers, as its point of genius, puncturing the head of the child, and sucking out its brains, so that the … Read more
