Author: Joseph Sobran

[Classic: May 29, 2009] — Next to the peerless Tom Wolfe, perhaps the most brilliantly gifted living American writer is Garry Wills. Immensely learned and versatile, Wills has written award-winning books on many subjects, from Macbeth to the Gettysburg Address. Some of these suffer from a bit of illogic, though they are largely redeemed by his stylish and scholarly prose. In recent years, he has written several best-selling books on religion, perfecting the liberal Catholic technique of calling himself a Catholic while he attacks the Catholic Church. Why I Am a Catholic might better have been titled Why I Am … Continue reading →

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[Classic: October 7, 1997] — I’ve always resisted calling Mother Teresa a saint, not because I had any reason to doubt her holiness, but because I felt it was presumptuous to call any living person a saint. Besides, I suspect that a truly holy person — holiness being inseparable from humility — would hate being venerated in this life. Now that she is gone, though, it seems safe to say it: if Mother Teresa wasn’t a saint, it’s hard to imagine what one would look like. She not only lived, to all appearances, a holy life; she actually enlarged our … Continue reading →

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[Classic: January 22, 1998] — Suddenly nobody is questioning Paula Jones’s veracity anymore. Mrs. Jones told a simple story and has stuck with it, while the president has shifted ground, equivocated with his patented “carefully worded denials,” and let his thuggish, blundering, and very expensive lawyer handle public relations. The Clinton team’s line, echoed by the major media until recently, has been that Mrs. Jones is “trailer-park trash” whose allegations are credible only to dirty-minded right-wing Clinton-haters. Never mind that her allegations are consistent with a great many other allegations from a great many sources. The Clinton strategy was to … Continue reading →

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[Classic: March 10, 1998] — David Brock has become the first journalist to confess his participation in the vast right-wing conspiracy to get President Clinton. Actually, he confessed it last year, but nobody was listening. In an open letter to the president in the April issue of Esquire, Brock apologizes for his epoch-making 1993 article in The American Spectator, the one that gave “Arkansas state troopers” a special meaning, like “grassy knoll” as of 1963. Or, more to the point, like “bimbo eruptions” as of 1992 and “White House intern” as of 1998. The article also led, inadvertently, to Paula … Continue reading →

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[Classic: November 18, 1997] — There is no popular demand for war with Iraq or anyone else, and President Clinton knows it. The pressure for war is coming from the usual quarters: those who, for various reasons, want the United States to dominate the Middle East. The op-ed hawks are framing the issue as whether Clinton has the “character” (read: guts) to bomb Iraq. If there is one issue where he is vulnerable, it’s character. He is easy to caricature as a draft-dodging hedonist who lacks principle and courage. And the caricature requires only slight exaggeration. Clinton is no saint, … Continue reading →

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[Classic: April 8, 1999] — As he ordered the bombing of Kosovo, Bill Clinton assured the nation that he has been “reading up on the history of that area.” That’s a load off! The great war-time presidents have always realized that before you bomb a country, you should read up on it. Clinton described the decision as “a moral imperative.” He shouldn’t use the word “moral” without blushing; but then, as we learned last year, he doesn’t blush easily. With Clinton, there is no such thing as a moral imperative. There is only what’s good for Bill Clinton. And he … Continue reading →

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[Classic: July 1996] — I keep catching myself hoping that Bill Clinton will be reelected. It isn’t just that Bob Dole richly deserves to lose; it’s that mere electoral defeat would be an inadequate comeuppance for the Clintons. They are headed for their own Watergate, and it would be a pity to see the drama aborted. I’m only moderately vindictive: I want them hounded out of office, not hounded after they’ve already left. This is getting good. As I write, Bill’s old pal Bruce Lindsey* has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in the latest federal trial of the Arkansas mob. … Continue reading →

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[Classic: January 21, 1996] – Bill Clinton is a New Democrat again. Having tarred the Republicans as extremists, he is filching their themes, thereby displaying one of his defining qualities: an utter incapacity for embarrassment. Maybe he doesn’t know the meaning of self-contradiction. Or maybe it’s his guiding principle. You have to catch your breath at his audacity. For sheer quick-change conviction and philosophical acrobatics, we shall not look upon his like again. Mr. Clinton assures us that the era of big government is over, and proceeds to unroll an agenda of dozens of programs that didn’t occur to Lyndon … Continue reading →

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[Classic: May 22, 1997] — Americans are traditionally taught that any boy can grow up to be president, and nobody has taken that idea to heart like William Jefferson Clinton. Dreaming of greatness, he didn’t foresee that his presidency would be consumed by such questions as Just how bad is this president? Will he be impeached? Will his wife go to jail? The first O. J. Simpson trial may be the fitting emblem for the Clinton years. Bill Clinton is his own Dream Team, artfully suppressing evidence, changing the subject, and getting himself off one hook after another, even when … Continue reading →

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[Classic: 4/13/2000] — April 12 marked the 450th birthday of the writer we know as “William Shakespeare.” Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was born on April 12, 1550. Oxford adopted the name “Shakespeare” in 1593 when he published the poem Venus and Adonis, which he dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton. Oxford had fallen in love with the handsome teenager, who was being urged to marry his daughter Elizabeth Vere. Southampton is also the “lovely boy” to whom most of the Shakespeare Sonnets are addressed. When I argued this in my book Alias Shakespeare (published by The … Continue reading →

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[Classic: 4/5/2007] — It’s nearly Easter, and the atheists, God bless them, are writing bestselling books to prove the good Lord’s nonexistence. Truly, they have their reward. One of the most famous of them, a British professor named Richard Dawkins, says atheists are generally smarter than Christians. I wouldn’t doubt it. After all, St. Paul says God has chosen the foolish people of this world to confound the wise. I don’t know how many times some simple soul has put me to shame when I thought I was being clever. Oops! Maybe polished professors never have this experience. Of course, … Continue reading →

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[Classic: 12/5/2002] — It was going to be a short, easy war. King Menelaus of Sparta had a domestic problem: his beautiful wife Helen had run off with his handsome guest, the Trojan prince Paris. So he called in his chips, summoning other Greek rulers — all former suitors of Helen who owed him their fealty — to help him recover her. Surely Troy — a rich, civilized but isolated and effete city — could not withstand their combined forces for long. It would soon see reason and give up Helen. But Troy proved unexpectedly stubborn and tough. The war … Continue reading →

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