This one’s for John. He’s a reader who took issue with a recent column of mine arguing that conservatism has become an angry and incoherent mess. John was particularly upset that I described conservatives as resistant to social change. Wrote John: “(sic) Tell that to the right side of the aisle who signed in the […]

By the next day, Bill Clinton was feeling remorse. Almost. “Now I like and believe in protests,” he explained to an audience at Penn State Behrend. “But I never thought I should drown anybody else out. … So I did something yesterday in Philadelphia. I almost want to apologize for it, but I want to […]

A portrait of Mississippi. It has a lower percentage of high school graduates than almost any other state. It has an unemployment rate higher than almost any other state. Mississippi’s fourth-graders perform more poorly than any other children in the country in math. Also in reading. Its smoking rates are among the highest in the […]

It was 15 minutes after midnight when the bombs began to fall. The people on the ground never had a chance. Before it was over, 334 Superfortress B-29s had dropped 2,000 tons of incendiaries on the wooden frame houses below. Fanned by high winds, the resultant conflagration became what some historians have dubbed the worst […]

About 20 years ago, when the syndicate that represents this column was preparing to pitch it to newspaper editors, I was called in for a meeting with the sales staff and somebody asked me this question: “Are you liberal or are you conservative?” I said, “Yes.” I wasn’t trying to be a wiseguy. OK, maybe […]

So, do you think guns should be allowed at the Republican National Convention? Granted, the question is moot. On Monday, the Secret Service announced that only its agents and Cleveland police will be allowed to bring firearms into Quicken Loans Arena when the GOP assembles there this summer. But “moot” is not the same as […]

An open letter to American Muslims: In April 1944, a Cpl. Rupert Trimmingham wrote the editor of Yank, a U.S. Army magazine, about what happened when he and eight fellow soldiers, traveling by train, had an overnight layover in a small Louisiana town. They went to get coffee, but no restaurant would serve African-American soldiers […]

A few words about the pious insincerity of Mitch McConnell. As you are no doubt aware, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, announced on the very day that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died that he would refuse to hold hearings on any replacement nominated by President Obama. McConnell’s “reasoning,” if you want to grace it […]

We will call her Jane Doe. We really have no choice, given that that’s the only identification found in the court document. Jane is 57, a Jamaica-born permanent U.S. resident living in New York City. She is a licensed nurse and a mother. She is also a convicted felon. In 2000, Jane, trying to raise […]

Dear Florida Gov. Rick Scott: So it turns out the experts were mistaken. It turns out the impact of climate change on Florida — and much of the coastal United States — is not going to be anywhere near as bad as had been predicted. Apparently, it’s going to be much worse. That’s the sobering […]