Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary lists 83 words beginning with “double.” They run all the way from “double agent” (a spy pretending to serve one government while actually serving another) to “double whammy,” limply defined as “a combination of two usually adverse forces, circumstances or effects.” That’s a whammy?It is remarkable. The English language embraces double-barrel, […]

State court’s decision depicted marriage as an intimacy choice for individuals. Some admire the gay-marriage ruling in Massachusetts. Some don’t. But surely the heart of the story is the stupefying arrogance of the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. If you are going to stretch a state’s constitution beyond all previous understanding and impose what many people […]

The Constitution prohibits a foreign-born citizen from seeking the presidency, but if it didn’t . . . When Sen. Orrin Hatch and others finally get around to meddling with the Constitution to allow a foreign-born U.S. citizen to seek the presidency, someone should throw Madeleine Albright’s hat into the ring.True, the constitutional elves had someone […]

Gay rights have replaced abortion as the pre-eminent lifestyle issue in 21st-century America, and that could become a very big deal.Over the past generation, Republicans have achieved electoral success primarily because of the public’s support of GOP tax cuts and defense policies.The Democrats’ strengths are domestic issues, such as education and health care, and they […]

The edge that gays had over straights from time immemorial was that they couldn’t say yes to marriage.Now they may not be able to say no.This, bet me, will be the unintended consequence of Tuesday’s ruling by the high court of Massachusetts requiring the licensing of same-sex marriage.If you love me, why won’t you marry […]

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians looks so hopeless that only crazy people can still imagine a solution.But, lo and behold, two ex-Cabinet ministers, one Israeli, one Palestinian, have been daft – or brave – enough to put forward a detailed plan for a final agreement that lays out plausible solutions for the most […]

Conservatives are gaining voices in the entertainment and news media. “We’re not losing” isn’t much of a battle cry, but an article in the policy magazine City Journal with that modest message is attracting a lot of attention. The article, “We’re Not Losing the Culture Wars Anymore” by senior editor Brian Anderson, argues that the […]

James Boswell wrote most famously of the wit and wisdom of Samuel Johnson, but he once aired his own thoughts on the nature of humor. A good pun, he remarked, “may be admired among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation.”A pun, for the record, is punderously defined as “the usually humorous use of a word […]

At last, direct evidence that a man cannot comprehend what constitutes a mess. I like to think that I am a modest person. (I also like to think that I look like Brad Pitt naked, but that is not the issue here.)There comes a time, however, when a person must toot his own personal horn, […]

The following editorial appeared in the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, Nov. 19:States cannot decide to sanction marriage for some adults but not others. That’s common sense, and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it’s now the law.Though the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court split 4-3 on the issue of gay marriage, the language of its verdict […]