The New Republic

Last week I wrote two unrelated articles for The New Republic. One was a defense of people’s right to oppose gay marriage. It charged that dissident voices on this subject were being suppressed (although I myself am very much in favor). READ MORE >>

One reason the idea of gay marriage, or “marriage equality,” spread so fast is that it seems obvious once you think about it. It was a genuinely new idea when it first appeared in this publication in 1989. As was not the case with civil rights for African Americans, feminism, or for that matter gay rights themselves, there was no long history of opposition to be overcome. The challenge was simply getting people to think about it a bit. READ MORE >>

Feeling perhaps that columnist Paul Krugman hasn't made the point emphatically enough, The New York Times Monday published an op-ed shocker by two academics with the title, "How Austerity Kills." Kills? Yes, kills. READ MORE >>

In the beginning, the world was very simple in the public mind: Liberals were for government—borrowing as needed—and conservatives were for what they called “fiscal responsibility.” Ronald Reagan, of course, said it most memorably, in 1981 in his first inaugural address: “You and I, as individuals, can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. READ MORE >>

Like many of us, Wayne LaPierre had no idea you could build a terror weapon out of a bit of scotch tape, a couple of rubber bands and an old pressure cooker (or was it a toaster oven?). “Well I’ll be damned,” said the head of the National Rifle Association, no doubt correctly.Wayne’s second thought came just as automatically, if not as quickly. “I wonder,” Wayne thought, “what we at the NRA are doing to protect the right of all citizens under the Second Amendment to own and use double boilers and other terror weapons?” READ MORE >>

The most important piece of journalism so far in 2013 was commissioned by The New Republic. Unfortunately, due to a dispute, it appeared in Time, an obscure publication where no one will read it. READ MORE >>

Anthony Lewis, the longtime New York Times columnist who died Monday at age 85, had the dream newspaperman’s career. As a reporter in the Times Washington bureau, he more or less invented Supreme Court coverage, which previously had been mostly perfunctory and ignorant. READ MORE >>

Vatican officials breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when Pope Francis (“Just call me ‘Frank’”) surfaced in Buenos Aires nearly a month after disappearing during the first week of his papacy. The pope said he had spent the month hitch-hiking from Rome to his modest apartment in the Argentine capital in order to “pick up a few things” from his old life as a humble cardinal to his even humbler new life as the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics. He said he planned to take a bus back to Rome, and couldn’t say for sure when he’d arrive. READ MORE >>

Whoever could have imagined that Republicans could be such wussies? After all, the GOP is the Party of Testosterone. Democrats are the ones who are supposed to be wimpy and weepy. But lately the Republicans have been a bunch of crybabies: Hey mama, President Obama is picking on us. He’s so strong, so ruthless. Some of the biggest bullies in the schoolyard, it seems, can dish it out, but they can’t take it. READ MORE >>

In 1979, I received a letter that I can still recite by heart, because it was very short, and it was taped on the wall next to my desk for many years, reminding me of the first time I came back to The New Republic. I had quit as editor in an ethical dispute with the editor-in-chief. READ MORE >>