D. R. Tucker

Why didn't John Derbyshire tell me this stuff twenty years ago?

The veteran National Review writer, who was kicked out of the house William F. Buckley built, after writing a piece for a conservative website actually advising his children to avoid social interactions with African-Americans, has...

Like millions of Americans, I applaud President Obama's decision to firmly support marriage equality. However, I can't help noting, with a bit of regional pride, that the pathway to equal treatment for gay and lesbian Americans was paved by two old-school, live-and-let-live Massachusetts Republicans -- William Weld and Paul Cellucci.

Years ago, a progressive friend predicted that it would only be a matter of time before I became disillusioned with the conservative movement. "Those guys believe that government can't do anything right," he noted. "How can you believe that, when you went to a school that proved government can do...

I remember the tears, but I don't know why they came.

I didn't remember the name of the special that aired right after Sesame Street on WGBH in Boston in 1986. I just remember the segment, a cartoon apparently entitled "Pierre I Don't Care," about a selfish, annoying child named...

It's fascinating to watch old footage of the mainstream media's coverage of environmental issues, seeing as how the Fourth Estate seemingly has to be forced into mentioning the words "climate change" in a report today. It's also fascinating to watch how the entertainment industry used to deal with...

Does the Republican Party really stand for liberty?

One of the oddest arguments advanced by the GOP and the larger conservative movement over the past three years is that President Obama and the Democratic Party are opponents of "liberty." Of course, the American right embraces a rather simplistic definition of...

Yes, Arlen Specter is the president of his own fan club.

The former Pennsylvania senator doesn't exactly come across as Mr. Humility in his new book, Life Among the Cannibals: A Political Career, a Tea Party Uprising, and the End of Governing As We Know It. In fact,...

Is climate denial a cognitive disorder?

There's a compelling case to be made that those who reject scientific facts are a little, well, touched, and Chris Mooney's outstanding and provocative new book The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science -- and Reality (due out April 3)...

Hey, I can't help it.

I have spent the past few days with a gigantic smile on my face, deriving the utmost pleasure from the travails of Rush Limbaugh -- the man who had me convinced for nearly 15 years that global warming was a hoax. Honestly, this stuff couldn't...

Which genius came up with the term "warmist" to describe those who recognize that anthropogenic climate change is a legitimate problem?

The website visualthesarus.com defines the term this way:

Among those skeptical that human practices are responsible for global warming, the term warmist has caught on to...

There's nothing more hilarious than the right-wing contention that those who are concerned about the threat of climate change are nothing more than neo-communists. Of course, what isn't funny is the reality that climate change poses the same threat to this generation that communism posed to previous generations.

In the mourning that gripped Boston last month following the passing of the city's legendary major, Kevin Hagan White, it was frequently noted that White demonstrated exemplary leadership in the weeks and months following US District Judge W. Arthur Garrity's decision to desegregate the Boston Public Schools. Having been born...

Should moderate Republicans exploit the Citizens United ruling for their own ends?

I can still hear Rush Limbaugh's on-air celebration in January 2010 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down certain provisions of the McCain-Feingold law as unconstitutional. Limbaugh, who spent years denouncing the law on air, declared the ruling...

Last week, I had the honor of co-interviewing climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, who was thrown under the bus by Newt Gingrich for the sin of offending the sensibilities of his voting base. Hayhoe was gracious, kind, intelligent, and thoughtful -- qualities that also describe the host...

It's only fitting that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional on the same day that the Boston Globe reported on a Boston-area black church proclaiming acceptance for members of the LGBT community. From coast to coast, it seems, equality is...

Republicans in Massachusetts often say that Deval Patrick's 2006 gubernatorial campaign served as a template for Barack Obama's presidential campaign two years later. What they won't tell you is that the conservative template of attacking Obama with unrelenting invective was also created here in the Bay State, and used against...

When I saw last Friday's Wall Street Journal editorial, "No Need to Panic About Global Warming," my first instinct was to burst out laughing. The Journal found a whopping 16 "concerned scientists" who declared that fears about climate change were exaggerated, and that we can just keep on...

In January 2002, Acting Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, who inherited the job from Paul Cellucci, announced that she would run for a full term. Unfortunately for Swift, Republicans in Massachusetts were convinced that she could not win, and began looking for suitable alternatives.

By March, efforts were underway to...

If only we didn't have to look into the past to find leadership.

Disgusted by the pornographic presidential primary, repulsed by the filth pit of modern American politics, I recently took solace in the autobiography of a man who represented an older, more noble tradition of public service, a man...

I don't want to believe it's true.

The allegations of financial impropriety against veteran conservative activist Ward Connerly are deeply troubling. As someone who spent years defending Connerly's integrity in arguments with progressives who viewed him a self-hating con artist, the thought that something other than...