Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
"It was inevitable that Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital would feature prominently in the presidential race, because both candidates need to exploit it in order to win." Here's how the issue is playing out politically
"In the interest of civility and electoral prudence, neither Obama nor Romney can initiate a conversation about what it means to be Mormon. The rest of us should, because the story is complicated, fascinating, and utterly American"
Afghanistan. America's "surge" has been a failure, but Obama has escaped punishment for it. "On no other major issue has Obama been so cynical. And on no other issue has his cynicism proved so politically shrewd"
Romney: Father, son and ghost. How much does the life and experience of George Romney, failed candidate for Republican nomination in 1968, explain motivation and electoral strategy of his son Mitt?
Evangelicals are making common cause with Romney because to do otherwise is to hand the election to Obama. In so doing, Mormonism comes closer to American mainstream. It's what Mormons want, but there may be unintended consequences
The play, Clybourne Park, has become a cultural fixture during the Obama presidency. It suggests that, when it comes to race in America, not much has changed over the past half-century. "It is the audacity of rage, not hope"
The Obama government has rationalised its failure to prosecute anyone (literally, anyone at all) for bubble-related crimes by saying that while much of Wall St's behaviour was unwise or unethical, it wasn't illegal. What rubbish
Main topic: Losing faith in Obama. He overpromised, underdelivered. “It’s like a novelist being obsessed with Tolstoy or Proust, and then he ends up writing short stories that can barely get into some middlebrow magazine." Ouch
Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves. Collectively, they provide a juicy target. "The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators"
US reaches tipping point in transition from "mostly white baby boomer culture to globalised multi-ethnic country". What does it mean? Will older Americans balk at paying for a generation who look less like themselves?
Against Robert Kagan, and his "Copernican interpretation of contemporary history": America the sun around which all else orbits. His new book, "The World America Made", is "a slim volume of mythopoeia decked out in analytic drag"
Scathing takedown of US president. "It isn’t simply that Obama lied. Politicians lie. But there are norms for political lying. The depth and dependability of Obama’s misrepresentation constitute a difference in kind"
"In the United States, everyone may enjoy freedom of speech so long as it doesn’t matter"
