Well, you can't miss the new film Lincoln.  Here's the big reason:  Daniel Day-Lewis' Lincoln is pretty much WHO we will think of when imagining the person "Father Abraham" from now on.  He really looks like the lanky, awkward Lincoln.  He has the mannerisms down, including those of the world-class ...

Here’s a thought of the novelist Walker Percy’s searching character Will Barrett in The Last Gentleman: For until this moment he had lived in a state of pure possibility, not knowing what sort of man he was or what he must do, and supposing therefore that he must be all men and do everything ...

It's been fashionable for a long time now to deny all evidence for human uniqueness, for the singular greatness of members of our species. So it's refreshing to read Michael Trimble's claim that "The notion that animals can weep—apologies to Dumbo, Bambi, and Wlibur—has no scientific foundation ...

For a couple of days, I was inclined to buy the theory that Obama won the election because his campaign was so "metric driven."  Metric driven in this case seems to mean the Machiavellian science of manipulation of the voters.  It's measurable knowledge of who's going to vote and why in key places ...

The president's decisive 60+% electoral college victory can be contrasted, of course, with his very narrow popular vote margin.  Our Constitution has the effect of magnifying his win, giving it something of the feel of a mandate.  The  president has decided not to comment on how darn close the ...

A good thing about ELECTIONS is that they remind us we have a CONSTITUTION. They especially remind us that we're a really, really constitutional people. Lots of Americans really hate the president and think he's a dangerous "progressive" menace.  And lots of Americans hate Romney and think he's ...

So one reason for LIBERAL EDUCATION is to give students some sense of the genealogy of our ideas. It seems as if everyone believes in free persons these days.  Not only that, we tend to believe that the PERSON is the bottom line.  Nothing trumps the security and freedom of the persons alive ...

James Ceaser, perhaps our most distinguished student of American politics on the conservative side, isn't about predicting the outcome of elections.  That's actually hard to do. And those political scientists who predict outcomes correctly well in advance are almost always just lucky.  This ...

So the best reason to read a "great book" is that you might learn a lot from it about who you are and what you're supposed to do.  In that spirt, I'm reading a variety of great books with two students this semester—Jacob Stubbs and Kristian Canler.  The authors include Pascal, Leo Strauss, Allan ...

So I've gotten a lot (meaning several) emails complaining that I haven't gotten around to keeping my promise of talking about Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. Well, sorry.  Here's one reason why.  I'm actually teaching that fascinating—and flawed—book right now, and I thought you ...

Here are the most sensible thoughts about the election that have come to my attention: 1. Romney has had considerable momentum since the first debate.  It's come to an end, not because of Biden or anything but because there are only so many persuadable voters at this point. 2. The Real Clear ...

So Scott Jaschik explains—in Inside Higher Ed—that parents and students still want the prestigious brand of the liberal arts college.  Lots of leaders, after all, have been educated at such schools, and the alumni and your fellow classy students will be great for networking.  It doesn't speak well ...

Sure he is, according to Walter Russell Mead.  Mead's Meadea, of course, is one of the most savvy and erudite blogs around. One reason, it appears, that Mead is voting Romney is that he's paranoid about all things puritanical.  Left-wing Puritanism is a greater threat to our liberty than right ...

Well, if all you had to go by is tonight's debate, you'd have to say yes. Romney's presentations were clearer, tighter, more incisive, more eloquent, more factually detailed, and more savvy and nimble than those of the president.  He certainly didn't looked stiff or overprogrammed, and he had ...

So says an outstanding young conservative public intellectual—Helen Rittelmeyer. It’s true enough that conservatives still do accuse the Democrats—or, more precisely, the liberals—of being moral relativists.  Rittelmeyer quotes Paul Ryan saying that the big problem of our time is moral ...