Author: Lance Garrison
Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. It was a no good, very bad week for the “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who happens to be the 46th president. If you were his closest friend, what advice would you give him?Gail Collins: Oh gosh, Bret. We’re talking of course about the report a Justice Department special counsel filed on President Biden’s handling of classified material — the same kind of material Donald Trump left piled around the toilet.Bret: I used to joke that Trump’s behavior gave new meaning to the term “anal retentive.” Maybe we can start describing Biden as “mnemonically…
Several months ago, I had an opportunity to tour one of these new shelters. Peace House opened in the fall of 2019 in Park City, Utah, with an explicit mission to be as public as possible. It takes steps to advertise its location, even optimizing the language on its website to make it easy for search engines like Google to find. A large sign out front announces both organization and address in large blue letters. It sits on a frontage road just off I-80.As Kendra Wyckoff, the executive director, showed me around, she told me a story of how she’d…
Indonesia’s transformation into a stable democracy over the past quarter century was as improbable as it was remarkable.In 1998, the country was on the brink of collapse from a devastating financial crisis and protests that brought down the brutal and corrupt 32-year Suharto dictatorship. Ethnic and religious violence across the sprawling archipelago raised the specter of Balkanization or a military crackdown.Then, against the odds, the nation’s entrenched elites acceded to public demands for reform and the military withdrew from political life, ushering in an era of open, competitive elections. Corruption and dysfunction persisted, but the world’s fourth most populous country…
One of the most difficult conversations you can have in life is with a parent or peer who is becoming too old and infirm to work. Whether the infirmity is physical or mental, often your loved one is the last person to realize his own deficiencies, so he may interpret respectful, genuine concern as a personal attack.This conversation is difficult enough when it’s conducted entirely in private with friends and family. It’s infinitely more difficult when it plays out in public and involves the president of the United States.The top-line conclusion of the special counsel Robert Hur’s report regarding the…
More than 100 million people are expected to watch this Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, most likely making it the year’s most watched television broadcast — again. The National Football League is an American cultural behemoth: Ninety-three of 2023’s 100 most-watched television broadcasts were N.F.L. games.Among those who will be watching the game is National Review senior editor Charles C.W. Cooke. A native of England, Cooke has become an avid football fan (specifically, of the Jacksonville Jaguars) and has written about his growing understanding of America’s one true national sport. He has…
To the Editor:Re “Fringe Climate Proposal, a Giant Space Parasol, Gains Interest” (front page, Feb. 3):The idea that we should invest trillions of dollars to construct a giant space umbrella to shield our planet from the sun is preposterous. It would be too expensive, come too late and risk “termination shock” in case of a major malfunction or accident.If NASA or other space agencies move forward to spend millions for a pilot, perhaps it should be named the Icarus Project for its hubris.We need to get real, create consensus on the ground that the climate challenge is serious, and build…
The night before my father died, Ronald Reagan, I listened to his breathing — ragged, thin. Nothing like that of the athletic man who rode horses, built fences at the ranch, constructed jumps from old phone poles, cut back shrubs along riding trails. Or of the man who lifted his voice to the overcast sky and said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”Time and history folded over themselves inside me, distant memories somersaulting with more recent realities — the 10 years of his journey into the murky world of Alzheimer’s and my determination to abandon the well-worn trail of childhood…
The low approval rating and various political headwinds for President Biden have invited comparisons with another first-term Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, and the challenges he faced running for re-election in 1980. Many Republicans are thinking about his defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, bullish that Donald Trump also has what it takes to oust a flagging incumbent.It is true that the 2024 race is shaping up to be a 1980 replay of sorts, but with an important twist. The more significant comparisons could be between Mr. Trump and Mr. Carter and their difficulty in winning over voters and, even…
To the Editor:Re “Gender Dysphoric Kids Deserve Better Care,” by Pamela Paul (column, Feb. 4):I’m an L.G.B.T.Q.+ teenager. Ms. Paul cites stories of detransitioners as if they are damning to the practice of gender-affirming care as a whole. Not all detransitioners regret their transition, and not all transgender people will medically transition. An overwhelming 98 percent of people who started their transition care as youths continue into adulthood, per a 2022 study from the Netherlands published in The Lancet.Speaking from experience, my peers and friends who have undergone medical transitions have never “regretted” it, and after beginning care, their quality…
Ask the people in your life to name a woman who’s got it good, with wealth and beauty and talent and true love, and I’d bet at least a few of them would name Taylor Swift.Ms. Swift, the 34-year-old pop icon, who made history last Sunday as the only musician to win four best-album Grammy Awards, checks many of the important boxes. She is white and thin and blonde in a world that continues to privilege whiteness and thinness and blondness. She’s a billionaire with an enviable real estate portfolio, a loyal coterie of girlfriends and, for the past five…