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Hillary’s Book A Monumental Flop

June 28, 2014 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Entertainment, Liberals, Warner Todd Huston, Books, Bill Clinton, Ethics, Progressives, Government Corruption, Hillary Clinton | Comments Off on


Hillary’s Book A Monumental Flop

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, the stats are in and it is looking like Hillary’s book is such a flop that the publisher won’t even recoup the upfront money they doled out to her to “write” the thing.

In the book’s first week sales were not horrible, still they were nothing to get excited about. But by week two sales cratered and now it looks like “flop” is written all over this door stop. Sales fell by a whooping 43 percent in week two.

According to Becket Adams, “Excluding digital purchases, only 85,721 copies of Hard Choices sold in the book’s first week, and only 48,227 copies sold in its second week, according to Nielsen numbers.”
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Obama Whines: ‘Do They Resent That I Never Served in the Military?’

January 10, 2014 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Liberals, Military, President, Warner Todd Huston, Government, Ethics, Progressives, Government Corruption | Comments Off on


Obama Whines: ‘Do They Resent That I Never Served in the Military?’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went after the Obama administration quite hard in his new book about his days working for Obama. And now Obama is showing how thin-skinned he is over criticism. But the book also shows that Gates is not impressed with Obama and his people.

The good folks at The Daily Beast have culled out some key quotes showing how badly Obama reacts to criticism.

Take how Obama reacted when one of his plans for Afghanistan leaked to the press:

When the McChrystal plan for Afghanistan leaked to The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, according to the memoir, the president raged to Gates, asking, “Is it a lack of respect for me?… Do they resent that I never served in the military? Do they think because I’m young that I don’t see what they’re doing?”

The White House is apparently not very pleased, either…
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The New American Elite

February 6, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Book Reviews, Budget, Business, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, GOP, Jobs, Liberals, President, Republicans, Socialism, Taxes, Free Trade, House of Representatives, Democracy, Government, WWII, Alan Caruba, Ethics | Comments Off on


The New American Elite

-By Alan Caruba

The only constant in the life of individuals and nations is change. Since the beginning of the last century, the process or rate of change has accelerated with the invention and availability of a myriad of machines, technologies that have altered the lifestyle of Americans as well as of millions around the world.

Let me put it in personal terms. When I was born in the late 1930s, my Mother washed the family laundry by hand and hung it out to dry on sunny days or in the basement of our home if it was raining. We were not poor. We were middle class. My Father was a Certified Public Accountant and we lived in a spacious suburban home in an upscale New Jersey community. Mass produced washers and dryers would arrive after the end of World War Two.

The differences between lower economic classes, the middle class, and upper classes were well defined back then. All, however, generally held the same values regarding societal institutions such as marriage, religion, national pride. Those values have eroded since the 1960s and Charles Murray, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, whose new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010” ($27.00, Crown Forum) tells you how and why.
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Mark Twain Died 100 Years Ago Yesterday

April 22, 2010 | Filed Under Book Reviews, History, Warner Todd Huston, Books | Comments Off on


Mark Twain Died 100 Years Ago Yesterday

An American original, Samuel Clemens aka “Mark Twain,” died 100 years ago yesterday. Twain, author of some of America’s most famous literary works (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) passed away on April 21, 1910.

Twain was a taciturn man given to pessimism and the morose, but his works are cherished as American classics that talked about America in raw terms revealing its sense of humor and love of life.

In any case, we pause to recognize the 100th anniversary of the great scribe’s passing. RIP Mark Twain. 11/30/1835 – 4/21/1910.


A Reply to Bill Reed

February 17, 2010 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Entertainment, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston, Books, Magazines | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

I know you readers have tired of this comic book controversy, but a youngster wrote me another one of those “open letters” on CBR and he was much less unhinged than most of the folks over there. So, I’ll just post this reply to him here and move on. I promise that this will be the last word on this business… well, probably.

Bill Reed wrote his “A Really Open Letter to Mr. Warner Todd Huston” and this is my reply…

Mr. Reed,

Thanks for your letter and thanks for being the only one from the CBR site that even attempted to be even tempered and free of vitriol (unlike Carla Hoffman and all her sycophantic commenters). Unfortunately you make an awful lot of assumptions in your piece that shows a lack of greater perspective and this is a failure that most of your CBR folks are making. All this adds to your feelings about my “lack of courtesy, misconceptions about the comic book medium, and considerable errors of judgment.” In truth it is you and your CBR folks that are mired in these errors.

You begin by saying that you don’t want to “gang up on me.” I beg to disagree. If you didn’t you wouldn’t have bothered to write in the first place. In fact, one of the things I am amused at from your CBR fans is the constant refrain that they all don’t care what I have to say. “Who cares what Huston has to say,” is the oft heard refrain from you folks on CBR. Who cares? I submit that YOU guys care because of the many posts about me, the constant pot stirring, and the rehash seen here. If you guys truly didn’t care you’d have ignored the whole thing.
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Instead of Understanding, Liberals Feel

February 14, 2010 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Entertainment, Free Speech, Liberals, Media Bias, Warner Todd Huston, Freedom, Media, Books | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

My recent flap with the extreme leftists in the comics community brought home once again the simple fact that liberals don’t understand the definitions of words, cannot think logically, and don’t have the tiniest ability to understand complex concepts. Despite their mental incapacities, though, they are sure they are smarter, more civilized, and more tolerant than those they hate and all this they assume while they name-call everyone that disagrees with them. To top it all off there is a surfeit of self-esteem, no doubt instilled in them boy our liberal, and failed, public school system.

Last week I wrote a critical analysis of a Marvel Comics comic book that sent these unhinged lefties off the deep end. The criticism thrown at me by these poor, Peter Pan Syndrome suffering folks is, however, a great object lesson in how badly educated, how illogical, and how distempered the left truly is.

These emails and replies to my comic book analysis really brought it home that to be a liberal you must make assumptions of your enemy so that they fit neatly into your preconceived notions of the world and you must never try to ask them any questions to determine if they really do fit into the box you’ve constructed for them. You must assume you are more grown up than those you attack. You must assume that you are more intelligent. You also must assume that people that like the same sort of things that you like must think just like you do. In other words, to be a liberal you must begin every discussion, every consideration of ideological premises, with the base assumption that all good people are just like you. Everyone else is venal, mean, stupid or low. Not just wrong, but evil.
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Captain America’s Tarnished Shield Rolls On

February 12, 2010 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Liberals, Media Bias, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Tea Party, Media, Books, Magazines | 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, looks like this Captain America business is still rolling ever onward. I have been quite amazed at the wide reach this article of mine has found. When I hit the enter key to post my analysis of Captain America #602 I never imagined that I’d be on The Keith Oblermann show (even though few saw it as he only has about 20 viewers!), in the New York Times, the Washington Times, and a million webpages across this great land.

My piece was picked up by the whole of the U.S. Old Media and has forced Marvel Comics to apologize to the Tea Party movement and promise to delete the offending references in later editions.

Well, today’s development. Apparently Carla Hoffman, known in comics circles as a reviewer and commentator on the comics scene, has penned an “open letter” to me hosted on The Comic Book Resources website.

Little Miss Hoffman tried for a hip snarkiness in her open letter to me but her efforts led to failure because she violated the main journalist’s rule: at least TRY to contact your subject. She made the fatal assumption that I had no connection to comics, that I’d never read a single book in my life (perhaps excluding a child’s fascination with them).
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The Intellectuals What Ain’t

February 9, 2010 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Education, History, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization, France, Books | Comments Off on


The Intellectuals What Ain’t

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is no better example of how low intellectuals have fallen than the case of Bernard-Henri Lévy, intellectual, provocateur, member of the well-regarded French nouveaux philosophes and, it seems, all around gullible fool.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, better known to those in the know as BHL, has become a laughing stock of modern inteleckshoouls everywhere with the publication of his much anticipated book on philosopher Immanuel Kant.

Oh, there’s sharp criticism in Lévy’s new Kantallope, there’s bomb thrown name calling, and nose-up-turning galore. Kant, according to Lévy, is a “raving lunatic” and a “fake.” And to prove his case Lévy uses the anti-Kanti words of the famous 20th-century philosopher Jean-Baptiste Botul — known as the father of the philosophical school of Botulism.

Yeah. Big problem for BHL, though. Jean-Baptiste Botul is a fictional character made up as a joke in 1999 by a journalist. I mean, come on, if you didn’t see the joke in “the school of Botulism” what sort of bat do you need upside your head to see the truth?
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Book Review: What Are These Tea Parties About, Anyway?

January 13, 2010 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Book Reviews, Budget, Communism, Congress, Constitution, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Education, Elections, Free Speech, GOP, History, Jobs, Liberals, Media Bias, Republicans, Security/Safety, Socialism, Society/Culture, State Government, Taxes, Unions, Warner Todd Huston, Inernet, Tea Party, Freedom, Free Trade, Journalism, Senate, Western Civilization, Chicago, Cook County, Blogging, Democracy, Federalism, States Rights | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

A new book about the Tea Party movement — and a movement it really is — will soon be hitting the shelves. “A New American Tea Party” penned by John M. O’Hara, one of the many folks that helped bring us some of those protests in early 2009, is a book that hopes that the reader will come away understanding and appreciating the Tea Party movement as a truly grassroots happening, a spontaneous outpouring of interest backed by true red, white and blue American ideals.

Author O’Hara, himself an early Tea Party organizer in Washington D.C. and the Chicago area, answers several questions with the book: what sparked the Tea Parties; is the name “Tea Party” itself a proper sobriquet; what do they mean; what does the future hold; and how do you make more?

The first thing one might notice is that O’Hara writes in a crisp, conversational style with short subchapters. This makes it ideal for reading bits at a time. This is not a dense treatment and I think his style makes the book very accessible to people of all ages — without talking down to the young or dumbing it down for the more advanced reader.
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Your Next Book: Slaying the Leviathan, by Leslie Carbone

August 27, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Economy/Finances, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off on


Your Next Book: Slaying the Leviathan, by Leslie Carbone

-By Warner Todd Huston

My friend, Leslie Carbone has published her book at last. It is titled “Slaying the Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform.”

It has just come out this week so I have not had a chance to look it over yet, of course. But here is the advance announcement and the book can be purchased from Amazon.com right now.

Description:

In the natural order, virtue and vice each carries its own consequences. On the one hand, virtue yields largely positive results. Hard work, patience, and carefulness, for example, tend to generate prosperity. Vice, on the other hand, brings negative consequences. Sloth, impatience, and recklessness, for example, tend toward suffering.

In Slaying Leviathan, Leslie Carbone argues that since the early twentieth century, U.S. tax policy has been designed to mitigate the natural economic results of both virtue and vice. When the government disrupts the natural order through taxation by creating incentives and disincentives that overturn these natural consequences, the government perverts its own function and becomes part of the problem—a contributor to social breakdown—rather than part of the solution or an instrument of justice.

Slaying Leviathan envisions an approach to tax policy rooted in natural justice. To achieve this goal, Carbone first traces the historical evolution of U.S. tax policy, from the 1765 Stamp Act to the 1997 tax cut. She then assesses the current American tax burden and George W. Bush’s tax cuts and explores the fundamental problems with U.S. tax policy. After providing a historical analysis of federal spending and of expanding governmental expectations, she offers a set of over-arching principles and instructions on how to apply them to tax policy proposals.

About the Author

Leslie Carbone served as the director of Family Tax Policy at the Family Research Council, chief of staff to the late assemblyman Gil Ferguson of California, and a speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Her writing has been published in the Weekly Standard, the American Enterprise, the San Francisco Chronicle, and numerous other magazines and journals. She has lectured on more than 100 college campuses and has been interviewed on more than 250 radio shows. She lives in Fairfax, Virginia.


Cash for Clunkers, Gatesgate, Plus A Special Treat

August 10, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Book Reviews, Budget, Business, Communism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Republicans, Socialism, Society/Culture, Taxes, The Law, Welfare, Freedom, Free Trade, Journalism, John Armor | Comments Off on


Cash for Clunkers, Gatesgate, Plus A Special Treat

-By John Armor

Let’s begin with the easiest subject to understand – economics. Last week two important events happened. The Cash for Clunkers program shut down when it burned through money planned for four months, in four days. And based on a previously passed federal law, the minimum wage went up again.

Now, the two programs are different in size. The minimum wage only increased by 70 cents an hour; whereas, the Clunker program is/was giving away up to $4,500 per transaction. So, the change was both larger and faster in the latter instance. I was on the road on family business and saw a hand-lettered sign in a Tennessee Tasty-Freeze that said, “Prices have increased due to wage increases.”

The bottom line is simple, and every student who was awake during the first day of Economics 101 knows it. When the price of anything goes up, people buy less of it. For sure, assorted studies by economists hired by labor unions have produced “academic” studies showing that raising the minimum wage does not cost anyone their jobs. But no honest studies support that conclusion.
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Taking the Mystery From Investing

August 5, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Budget, Business, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Patriotism, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off on


Taking the Mystery From Investing

-By Warner Todd Huston

I just got finished with a book about investing that I highly recommend. It’s called “The Investing Revolutionaries” by James N. Whiddon with Nikki Knotts. The subtitle is “how the world’s greatest investors take on Wall Street and win in any market” and short interviews with all sorts of high end investors that are making money even in this economic downturn are sprinkled throughout the book.

Now, I am not a money guy so when this book showed up on my table I cringed at the prospect of reading it. But I have to say that this book is no mere dry, archaic tome on investing. Instead, it is part lesson on human nature, part an American apologia, along with a guide to investing principles that everyone should know. This book has some timely advice and is written in a straight forward, understandable way and goes some way toward taking out the alchemic mysteries from the world of investing.

Each interview is uplifting and makes one optimistic about America and our economic system. For instance, author Whiddon spoke with Dinesh D’Souza whose enthusiasm for America is almost infectious.
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Slouching Toward Orwell’s 1984

July 27, 2009 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Education, Free Speech, Liberals, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Jeff Lukens, Freedom | 1 Comment

– By Jeff Lukens

George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” tells of an advanced world where there are no individual freedoms, and the state uses fear to manipulate and control people to conform to a prescribed belief. In the book, the Party maintains absolute power, and power has become an end to itself. His book is as relevant today as ever. In the age of Obama, the freedoms that define American life are slipping away and being replaced with ever more state control.

In Orwell’s book, the Party constantly rewrites history and rewrites the language to restrict the true meaning of words and the ideas behind them. They eliminate words to reduce vocabulary and thereby reduce uncontrolled thoughts. Doublespeak makes people believe what they would otherwise know to be false, and is encapsulated by the phrase: “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.” Orwell defined doublethink as, “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

In the book, the Party rewrites historical documents to match an evolving propaganda line, which changes daily. They amend newspaper articles, destroy evidence, and delete the existence of people identified as “unpersons.”
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The Kicker of St. John’s Wood: A Book Review

July 3, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Entertainment, Society/Culture, David Huntwork | Comments Off on


The Kicker of St. John’s Wood: A Book Review

-By David M. Huntwork

A rational person in a rational world should be able to say that the premise and storyline of the latest book by author Gary Wolf is silly, ridiculous, and prone to flights of fancy. Unfortunately, in the first decade of the 21st century the subject matter and conjecture found in the pages of The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is not so far-fetched and is indeed instead a remarkably accurate and reflective look at the forces, feelings and mindset of the modern-day Left.

It is a world in the not so distant future where the forces of the Left have saddled professional sports with quadriplegic referees, transgendered concessionaires and stuttering sportscasters. Now the festering forces of radical feminism have decided to launch a direct assault upon the blatantly oppressive, misogynist and patriarchal world of “maleness” that is professional football.

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Necessity is the Mother of Invention

June 14, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Economy/Finances, Education, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Technology, Nancy Salvato | Comments Off on


Necessity is the Mother of Invention

-By Nancy Salvato

General Motors recently filed for bankruptcy. Mark Steyn writes in National Review, “GM has about 95,000 workers but provides health benefits to a million people: It’s not a business enterprise, but a vast welfare plan with a tiny loss-making commercial sector. As GM goes, so goes America?” Fortunately, maybe this is not the case. Arnold Schwarzenegger, faced with a $24 million budget deficit, has “terminated” textbooks and is embracing digital booksProject Gutenberg. I’m just finishing “John Marshall and the Constitution; a Chronicle of the Supreme Court by Corwin”, an excellent read. The nicest feature on the device is that it allows me to bookmark or highlight while I’m reading. I can send my research to my email and use it when I write my commentaries. I have been wondering when a version of the Kindle will be adapted in the schools.
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More Old Media Hypocrisy on Palin’s Book Deal

May 15, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Liberals, Media Bias, Republicans, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

On his MSNBC show Hardball for May 13, Chris Matthews gleefully attacked Goveror Sarah Palin for hiring a ghostwriter for her upcoming book deal. In like fashion, Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp Blog has also gotten into Laugh-at-Palin’s-book mode so you can bet that this will be the scoff du jour among the left-media. But, the thing that proves the Old Media’s hypocrisy and partisanship is this “collaborator” angle. The media are going nuts that Palin is working with what is essentially a ghostwriter — though an upfront one, not a hidden one — and acting as if this is somehow unusual. But it simply is not.

Few politicians that have books published under their name ever themselves put pen to paper. Politicians are generally not writers and it is completely common that they hire actual writers to do the heavy lifting of composing their book. But here is both Matthews and Silva acting as if Palin is the only one ever to do it.

Heck, sometimes politicians never even read the book that bears their name just allowing their name to be affixed to the cover and letting it go at that. Barry Goldwater, for instance, is famous for having hinted that he never read the famous book that bears his name. The Conscience of a Conservative was actually ghostwritten by Brent Bozell, Jr., father of L. Brent Bozell III currently of the Media Research Center.

Regardless of the truth, however, this Tribune hack really takes the cake. Here is how Mark Silva starts off his rant:

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Harry Reid’s Arrogant Obama

April 28, 2009 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Book Reviews, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Harry Reid made a mistake. I know that is over generalized so I’ll narrow it down to a specific mistake because there are far too many from which to choose. The mistake I am taking about is in the addendum to his book titled “The Good Fight,” ghost written by Mark Warren, that is about to come out in paperback.

Reid added a 15-page epilogue to the paperback version that confirms Obama’s arrogance. In it, Reid claims to have approached Obama after a speech on Bush’s war policies that Reid heard Obama give just after becoming the Junior Senator from Illinois. After congratulating Obama on the speech, Reid recounts that Obama replied, “I have a gift, Harry.”

Well, that wasn’t too self-congratulatory, too arrogant, what it now?

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The Professor and the Madman

March 27, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Crime, Media Bias, John Armor | Comments Off on


The Professor and the Madman

-By John Armor

The title of this column is also the title of a book by Simon Winchester, published in 1998. The subtitle introduces the three, seemingly unrelated subjects of the book, “A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.”

I’d never heard of this book. It was only in the house because it was in Michelle’s apartment in New York. And it was there only because she ran a book sale at her church in Manhattan, and it was an orphan – donated for sale but not bought by anyone. Yet it turned out to be an excellent book.
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Book Review: Dancing Under the Ugandan Skies

March 24, 2009 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Education, History, Liberals, Media Bias, News, Security/Safety, Socialism, Society/Culture, David Heleniak | Comments Off on


Book Review: Dancing Under the Ugandan Skies

-By David Huntwork

Over the past few years I have had the privilege to have known a native Ugandan missionary named Mike Wangolo. He is the leader of a team of Africans called Afri-Tendo (http://www.thrustministries.org/) who make periodic trips to the United States to witness to Americans through native songs and dances. During his travels he has become a close and valued friend to many of my friends and family.
Through his story and example many people have developed a heart of love and compassion for the Ugandan people. One of the people influenced by Mike Wangolo through his trips to the United States was a young lady who eventually ended up participating in a missions trip to Uganda.
The story Susan Smith’s transformation and experiences in Uganda is amazing. Her life has been changed in a fundamental way and she has become a passionate humanitarian and missionary to the people of Uganda.

Uganda, especially in the northern part of the country, has suffered from over two decades of insurrection, lawlessness and civil strife. Over a million people were displaced from their homes during the fighting, many tens of thousands killed and orphaned, and the famous “midnight children” (thousands forced to flee their villages nightly to hide in forests, hospitals and nearby cities to avoid abduction by rebel groups) have garnered international attention.
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Is Amazon.com Deleting New Conservative Book Reviews?

August 11, 2008 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Entertainment, Media Bias, News, 00Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

(Important notice! I have radically changed my mind about the review of this music. See the new review.)

So, here is a curious thing. I have been reviewing books at Amazon for a few years now and never had the occasion to have one censored by Amazon.com. But, I just had two reviews in a row deleted by Amazon and it has caused me to wonder how often other conservatives have their reviews summarily eliminated from the Amazon site?

I have noticed, of course, that leftists use Amazon quite well to give conservative books a bad Amazon rating. In the past, whenever I wrote a positive review of a conservative book, for instance, I would be loaded up with negative votes on the review by Amazon visitors. But whenever I wrote a review of a non-political book, I got favorable votes on my review.

But, up until now, I’ve never had a review completely deleted by Amazon.

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TNR’s James Kirchick: Pat Buchanan is a Nazi Because His Father Was?

June 6, 2008 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, History, Media Bias, Military, News, 00Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New Republic has a rather interesting “book review” penned by James Kirchick on its website. It is a piece of work that really takes the cake for name calling, guilt by association, sins of the Father being visited on the son and serves as an all around typical example of a piece that lacks seriousness. It begins well enough, yet ends devolving into simple name calling with Kirchick basically saying author Pat Buchanan is a nazi lover and in sympathy with “authoritarians” because Pat’s father liked “General Franco.”

This TNR posting is supposed to be a review of Buchannan’s latest WWII book where Pat makes the claim that WWII should not have been fought and that the chief culprit for creating an unnecessary war was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Buchanan levels a healthy dose of criticism on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, too. Instead of a serious book review, though, and in stark violation of the old Internet rule that calling someone a Nazi pretty much ends any serious debate, Kirchick wildly went for Pat’s throat. The TNR headline says it all, too: “From Pitchfork Pat to Brownshirt Buchanan.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, like William F. Buckley, I am not prepared to say that Pat Buchanan is necessarily innocent of all the charges that Kirchick hurls at him in this TNR “book review,” but Kirchick’s vitriol just seems a bit over-the-top in its tone and seems to lack any serious claim to being a real book review.

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Manliness a No-No in Literature

February 26, 2008 | Filed Under Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, News, 00Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off on Manliness a No-No in Literature

-By Warner Todd Huston

It is always curious when left leaning artists, writers and musicians get in high dudgeon when the American people criticize them for their overtly political statements. These leftist artists often argue that the “integrity of the art” means that critics have “no right” to criticize them. But there is a great amount of hypocrisy in the art world over the issue of “artistic integrity” because these same people exert a good deal of peer pressure against any art that might have a conservative viewpoint. A recent L.A.Times Book section report on the works of Sci-Fi writer Robert Heinlein’s work is a perfect example of this attack of a conservative author’s work by the American left.

First of all, the “integrity of the art” argument does, indeed, hold some water. After all, in a free society an artist has every right to make his art in any manner he might wish. But even as artists may have the right to express themselves, that right has nothing what ever to do with any right of these artists to be heard. There simply is no such corresponding “right” for any artist’s work to be seen or heard by the public. Further, art consumers, whether they be filmgoers, art lovers, music fans, et al, have every right not to patronize the work of an artist whom they do not like or appreciate. Failure at the market place does not equate to any stifling of an artist’s rights.

The recent Times article by Scott Timberg titled, “Robert Heinlein’s future may be past,” is a perfect example of the left’s tendency to ostracize and rhetorically attack any art that evinces a perceived lean to the right. In his piece, Timberg has announced the death of Heinlein’s work, sure that it will soon fade away and the reasons that Timberg and those whom he interviews for his anti-Heinlein piece gave for this proclamation of the death of Heinlein’s legacy is instructive for the substance of the criticism. The reasons that these elitists are proclaiming the end of Heinlein is because his work isn’t “progressive” enough to suit their left influenced desires. So, here they are criticizing the integrity of Heinlein’s work and seeing no contradiction in that criticism.

Contrasting this anti-Heinlein position with the stance that entertainers and artists took over, say, the flak the Dixie Chicks took for their verbal attacks on the US and the Bush administration reveals a glaring contradiction.

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Judging Clarence Thomas

November 17, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized, Book Reviews, Judges, News, 00Publius Contributor, Society/Culture | 1 Comment

-By Michael M. Bates

Much of the reaction to Clarence Thomas’ new memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, has centered on the justice’s anger. You have to credit the mainstream media credit with consistency. Sixteen years after his confirmation to the Supreme Court, he’s as disliked by them now as he was in 1991.

A Hearst Newspapers’ columnist finds the book “the ultimate, most revealing act of hostility.” A Washington Post Writers Group essayist asserts that in his volume, “Thomas reveals himself to be a Shakespearean archetype, consumed by rage.”

On National Public Radio, the account is described as “a book of complete bitterness and rage.” Over at the Washington Post, readers were first told that “Justice Thomas Lashes Out in Memoir” and a few days later learned: “To read Clarence Thomas’ book is to be struck anew by the blast-furnace of his anger.”

I read Justice Thomas’ memoir today. It’s captivatingly interesting and gives hope there are yet thoughtful, honorable people in Washington. The impoverished black child from the Jim Crow South matured to be his own man and observes himself candidly, warts and all.
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A Review Of Saucer by Stepehn Coonts

November 16, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized, Book Reviews, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, News, 00Publius Contributor, Science, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Frederick Meekins | Comments Off on A Review Of Saucer by Stepehn Coonts

-By Frederick Meekins

In most science fiction stories, extraterrestrial technology is unveiled to the world when it is piloted to earth by proverbial little green men or bug eyed monsters. However, in Saucer, Stephen Coonts presents a scenario where man’s initial exposure to a civilization from beyond the earth does not occur overhead but rather from beneath our feet.

In Saucer, Coonts details the account of a spacecraft unearthed in the Sahara desert and the international intrigue that results as various nations conspire to acquire the vehicle from an egomaniacal Australian industrialist.

Though the novel focuses primarily on the actions of the factions jockeying to acquire the saucer, Coonts brings up a number of intriguing questions that he raises even if he does not answer them directly.

Scattered throughout the novel are a number of comments examining the philosophical ramifications of evidence suggesting life beyond this earth.
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Huckleberry Finn, “African-American” Jim, and Academic Achievement Scores

April 1, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized, Book Reviews, Education, History, 00Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Lee Culpepper | Comments Off on Huckleberry Finn, “African-American” Jim, and Academic Achievement Scores

Warren Lee Culpepper

Twain’s 1884 classic opens with a warning to the readers who attempt to find a “motive, a moral, or a plot” to the story. The key word in the sentence is “attempting.” Clearly, those readers who fail to find all three elements are the mentally encumbered morons to whom Twain refers, when he states he would just as well see them “prosecuted, banished, or shot.” To miss these literary elements in the book would require tremendous effort or just sheer idiocy.

In today’s politically correct (PC), multi-cultural, intolerant-tolerant, and over-sensitive climate, children are fortunate if they ever have the opportunity to read this historically controversial book. Today most of the controversy surrounds the repugnance of the word “nigger” (a degrading brand suggesting a human being is not a human being). To defend including the novel in a school curriculum, some suggest looking past the word because of its historical context. Other educators sugarcoat the issue by replacing the word with today’s PC term “African-American.” Their students giggle or grimace and then struggle through the rest of Huck’s funny yet disconcerting narrative. But since the story demonstrates how an uneducated white boy unlearns everything he’s ever been taught about blacks — thanks to a black, truly human character named Nigger Jim — wasn’t Twain’s point to offend us? Do you really think Twain believed the word “nigger” was just contextually accurate? Do you really think Twain approved of its common use during his lifetime? If one character in the entire story seemed incapable of being human it was Pap — the child abusing, drunk racist, and dirty thief (Huck’s white father).
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Chicago Sun-Times: Warning About Christian Fascists

February 9, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized, Book Reviews, Constitution, Family, Founders, GOP, History, Islam, Islamofascism, Media Bias, Patriotism, 00Publius Contributor, Religion, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times gave nearly an entire page in their “Controversy” Section to a man who feels America is under attack by a radical, religion that is inseparable from Nazi Fascism. He feels it is a hateful religion that is out to destroy America and everything it stands for and it must be stopped at all costs.

No he did not mean Islamism, amazingly enough, but Christianity.
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Review of Discover Magazine’s: “The God Experiments by John Horgan”

January 17, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized, Book Reviews, History, 00Publius Contributor, Religion, Science, Society/Culture, Gregory Stewart | Comments Off on Review of Discover Magazine’s: “The God Experiments by John Horgan”

-By Greg K. Stewart

This story has been in and out of the news last few years. Can one measure the existence of “God,” or “Spirituality” via the scientific method? That has been a question that has haunted science for years.

In the beginning of the article by John Horgan, he advocates science desire to answer the ineffable question, he says

“The science of religion has historical precedents, with Sigmund Freud and William James addressing the topic early in the last century. Now modern researchers are applying brain scans, genetic probes, and other the physiological causes of religious experience, characterize its effects, perhaps even begin it explain its abiding influence.”

Understandably, religion and science has considerable influence on the social paradigm over the past centuries. Horgan use of the word “perhaps” misleads his audience, the scientific method must always be followed not perhaps be deployed. He later redeems himself by providing case studies for each camp of the debate.
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Nock on Shaw’s Socialism

January 9, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized, Book Reviews, Constitution, Founders, History, Patriotism, Society/Culture, The Law, Thomas Brewton | Comments Off on Nock on Shaw’s Socialism

-By Thomas Brewton

Celebrated libertarian analyst Albert Jay Nock’s 1945 review of George Bernard Shaw’s Everybody’s Political What’s What exposes the fundamental flaw in socialism and its American liberal-progressive doctrine. As we begin a new Congress dominated by liberal-socialist-progressives, it is useful to have Mr. Nock’s perspective.

The Mises.org website posting titled The Socialism of Mr. Shaw is a reminder to us elderly, and a notice to the young, that however delightful Shaw was as a playwright, he was very far out in left field with regard to politics and economics. Not surprisingly, just as is true today of the media and theatre today, Shaw’s plays project pro-socialist views.

Most people today who know of Shaw at all probably acquired that acquaintance indirectly via the hugely successful Broadway musical My Fair Lady, which was an adaptation of Shaw’s Pygmalion. To appreciate Shaw’s role outside the literary field, it’s necessary to understand a bit more about the late Victorian period in England and its impact upon political and economic doctrine in the United States.
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