So I sat through all the unfamiliar ceremony, the maudlin commentary, and the endless repetitions of the speech at the 1980 Democratic Convention, waiting for President Obama to take the body in his arms and tell the nation how this death sets the scene for a renewed commitment to heroic...

It's a good thing Ross Douthat is back to empty calories. His column last week invoking the recent Pew poll on support for abortion actually required some research and analysis, at least to see what the Pew poll really meant. Most analysts dismissed the usually reliable Pew as putting...

Wondering what happened to Douthat Watch (the Times published the second installment of Ross Douthat's efforts in the distinctly provisional online forum)?

You have to have very good eyes to see nothing.

The column, an embarrassingly vapid description of how the Republican Party needs a "center" but not one...

I hope the New York Times is not counting on Ross Douthat's weekly columns to raise its new media levee against the rising tide. Douthat's maiden effort, "Cheney for President," which appeared without explanation (apprenticeship? coyness?) web-only today, is so boring and dated that it might have come...

While we wait for Ross Douthat to make his debut on the Times opinion page, this seems like a good time to get some of his basic strategies out. As the Chinese saying goes, teach a person what crap looks like and they will recognize crap for the rest of...

In a week or so, the Atlantic magazine wunderkind, the 29-year-old conservative blogger Ross Douthat will start his career as a regular columnist for the New York Times. The announcement of his appointment caused a flurry in the blogosphere. Conservatives generally praised the selection; some liberal writers...

(NOTE: Copies of what seemed to be a draft of an inaugural invocation by Pastor Rick Warren arrived in the fax machines of several prominent journalists this morning. This site does not vouch for the authenticity of the draft, although each of the statements does conform to material in Pastor...

"Feeling better?"
It was the woman again. Daylight was filtering through the open door from what she now knew was an empty room. What was she, the housekeeper or something? She was pretty young to be a single woman, even if she was sort of plain. There were...

A hundred plus years ago runaway slaves escaped to the North, pursued by their owners and the federal marshals. I was teaching my law students about the legal battles over the runaway slaves when I suddenly realized that this was what the world could be like if the Court...

A hundred plus years ago runaway slaves escaped to the North, pursued by their owners and the federal marshals. I was teaching my law students about the legal battles over the runaway slaves when I suddenly realized that this was what the world could be like if the Court...

A hundred plus years ago runaway slaves escaped to the North, pursued by their owners and the federal marshals. I was teaching my law students about the legal battles over the runaway slaves when I suddenly realized that this was what the world could be like if the Court...

A hundred plus years ago runaway slaves escaped to the North, pursued by their owners and the federal marshals. I was teaching my law students about the legal battles over the runaway slaves when I suddenly realized that this was what the world could be like if the Court...

A hundred plus years ago runaway slaves escaped to the North, pursued by their owners and the federal marshals. I was teaching my law students about the legal battles over the runaway slaves when I suddenly realized that this was what the world could be like if the Court...

A hundred plus years ago runaway slaves escaped to the North, pursued by their owners and the federal marshals. I was teaching my law students about the legal battles over the runaway slaves when I suddenly realized that this was what the world could be like if the Court...

I just heard Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC reporting a conversation with a female delegate at the Republican convention last night. Before vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech, the delegate allegedly told Mitchell that she was pro-choice and therefore little inclined to support Palin, who believes that the government should force...

The legendary cartoon -- I think it was the New Yorker -- had a bunch of men and one woman sitting around a conference table. All eyes are on her, but it is the man at the head of the table who is speaking. "Nice point, Mary," he says. "Now...

Click here to read part I and part II

Third Principle: Minimal Altruism for Everyone Else

With the emergence of non-state actors in global affairs -- Al Qaeda being only the best known of many -- the question of how to treat people living in...

This is Part II of a three part article. Part III will appear here tomorrow. Read Part I here.

Ever since the right launched its campaign to demonize the term, liberals have been worrying about their philosophical principles. When asked during the Democrats' You Tube debate, Hillary Clinton suggested...

This is Part I of a three part article. Parts II will appear here tomorrow and part III on Wednesday.

I. Introduction: Reveille for Liberals

The Democrats smell blood. In the big Pew Trust survey of party identification, the Democrats' lead has gone from three points four years...

In their article for the Huffington Post Wednesday, Shireen Mitchell and Adele Stan take me on for criticizing intersectional feminism. Their headline ("A Feminist Focus Includes Everybody") makes my case better than I ever could. "We feminists" they cite me as saying "are just too damed (sic) concerned about things...