Sobran Columns -- Archive, 2004

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December 30, 2004	•	Making Shakespeare Contemporary Enter another world and accept its imaginative demands.
December 28, 2004	•	Disasters, Natural and Political The modern state has learned to surpass nature in destruction.
December 23, 2004	•	Resisting Jesus We honor him when we acknowledge his explosive presence.
December 21, 2004	•	The Fear of “Theocracy” Liberals see no menace in an atheistic state — only in Christmas carols in public schools.
December 16, 2004	•	Gay Abe Goofy ... and goofier
December 14, 2004	•	More Progress, Anyone? There are no permanent norms to guide it, only a succession of enthusiasms espoused by minor prophets.
December 9, 2004	•	Barry Bonds, the Anti-Ruth The final difference between Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth
December 7, 2004	•	Can God Speak to Us? Or is he an omnipotent deaf-mute?
December 2, 2004	•	What Has Bush Learned? A neurotic war
November 30, 2004	•	A Specter Is Haunting Liberalism What if evolution itself evolves?
November 25, 2004	•	Life after Al-Qaeda Loyalties to ideas, political and religious, can be every bit as strong as loyalties to flesh and blood.
November 23, 2004	•	Let the Blue States Go! Liberals like big government — but not faith-based, anti-abortion, homophobic big government!
November 18, 2004	•	Journalism and Patriotism An excuse isn’t the same thing as a justification.
November 16, 2004	•	Tolerance and Progress Living in the ruins of false Progressive hopes
November 11, 2004	•	Words in Wartime Used to produce hysteria and destroy any sense of proportion
November 9, 2004	•	Are You “Ready”? Democrats continue to prove their contempt for the Christian vote.
November 4, 2004	•	The Party of Abnormality Today Democrats take positions nobody imagined 20 years ago; who knows what they’ll be calling for 20 years from now?
November 3, 2004 There was no November 2 column.	•	Why Bush Won Because Kerry was so “electable.”
October 28, 2004	•	"You Can't Mean It!" If you want to know how wise and honest a man is, observe how much he is willing to credit to his opponents.
October 26, 2004	•	How to Vote for Liberty The state can force us to pay taxes, to support its wars, to observe its myriad petty rules, but it can’t (yet) force us to give it our blessing.
October 21, 2004	•	The Bambino’s Cheap Shots A curse is broken and irony makes an appearance.
October 19, 2004	•	Diane Speaks His Piece Common sense has become “hate.”
October 14, 2004	•	The Dying Mother Card Why tell such a preposterous story? To tell us he realized the importance of integrity only a couple of years ago?
October 12, 2004	•	Death of a Comedian An earthquake of laughter
October 7, 2004	•	Secession, Anyone? A lot of things look inevitable in retrospect that were not at all inevitable when they happened.
October 5, 2004	•	Notes of a Former Couch Potato I still like the numbers.
October 4, 2004 This takes the place of the usual column, which would have been dated September 30.	•	Who Won? What George Bush taps into that John Kerry doesn’t
September 28, 2004	•	John Kerry’s Religion As president, John Kerry would not let his Catholicism slow him down.
September 23, 2004	•	Keep Talkin’ Happy Talk Liberals — including President Bush — all seem to believe in some unwinnable war or another.
September 21, 2004	•	Equality Run Amok Far from simplifying everything, equality has created a chaos of new rules, laws, and anomalous exceptions.
September 16, 2004	•	Diversity — The Real Thing A closed mind knows no bounds.
September 14, 2004	•	Bush and Media Bias The more or less implicit assumption in reporting the news
September 9, 2004	•	The Real Issue The principle Bush and Kerry agree on
September 7, 2004	•	The Kerry Ferry Bush may be the perfect politician for a democracy.
September 2, 2004	•	“Government at Its Best”? Going beyond Karl Marx
August 31, 2004	•	Reliable Ally Strikes Again How likely is it the Israelis have been spying on the United States?
August 26, 2004	•	The New Rules of the Game It’s an anti-family system, and it works just the way it’s supposed to.
August 24, 2004	•	Metaphorical Jurisprudence Clocks, baby seals, and the Constitution
August 19, 2004	•	New Jersey and the Pronoun Problem Official victim status means having it both ways.
August 17, 2004	•	The Threat of Religion It’s time to sound the alarm!
August 12, 2004	•	The Challenger Plays Defense A jingoistic wartime president can be expected to trounce Monsieur Nuance every time.
August 10, 2004	•	Two Monsters Alien George or Predator John? You pick.
August 5, 2004	•	Voting for “Neither” Fighting for an honest political language
August 3, 2004	•	The Age of Omniphobia We are being protected to death.
July 29, 2004	•	The Shouting Party VOLUME ALONE ... doesn’t convey anything.
July 27, 2004	•	The Single Party The myth of democracy requires the voters to be assured that they are making real choices.
July 22, 2004	•	The Unasked Question Just what was the risk of killing innocent people?
July 20, 2004	•	The L-Word Is Back Like the Pope, Kerry is Catholic and has lots of values and stuff.
July 15, 2004	•	The Amendment Strategy If liberals ever prayed, they would thank God for sending them such futile and feckless opponents.
July 13, 2004	•	A Great Victory After Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, Kerry isn’t much of a bogeyman. And he isn’t that far to the left of Bush himself.
July 8, 2004	•	Kerry: In Search of Excitement Only in a system where ennui is the norm could a political nobody like Edwards cause pulses to race.
July 6, 2004	•	Brando and His Imitators The kind of change he wrought, for better or worse, can happen only once.
July 1, 2004	•	Honoring Jefferson Jefferson’s “self-evident truths” were never meant to be platitudes.
June 29, 2004	•	Bill Buckley’s Sad Farewell William Buckley has finally relinquished control of his magazine, which is barely recognizable as the one he launched so many moons ago.
June 22, 2004	•	Hitler, Hitler Everywhere The passage of time helps us to wonder, “What was that war all about?”
June 17, 2004	•	A New Strategy for Kerry Not since the Nixon years has an administration suffered so many embarrassments.
June 15, 2004	•	Is Bush Another Reagan? The U.S. Government is an enormous lethal power, even if a saint is running it.
June 10, 2004	•	The Greedy State The tradition of rugged individualism tends to melt away when people are offered government checks.
June 8, 2004	•	The Great Comedian The master of the belly laugh
June 3, 2004	•	Land of the What? How many more times will Americans fall for the same lie?
May 27, 2004	•	They Aren’t What They Used to Be Americans should at least know the difference between the megastate they prefer and the government the Constitution describes.
June 1, 2004	•	The Greatest Generation? Power has severely damaged Americans’ capacity for objectivity about themselves
May 25, 2004	•	The Soul of John Kerry The main difference between the Catholic Church in America and the Democratic Party is that the Church puts up with a lot of dissent.
May 20, 2004	•	The Unequal Partners Whatever is bad for Arab-American relations is good for Ariel Sharon.
May 18, 2004	•	The King’s English When the president of France and the king of Jordan speak better English than the successor of Jefferson and Lincoln, something has gone wrong.
May 13, 2004	•	Bush the Infidel The deepest vested interest is guilt.
May 11, 2004	•	We’re Losing Shakespeare! The more the language alters, the harder it becomes to understand the past.
May 6, 2004	•	The Faithful and the Faithless Catholic laymen don’t have to wait for the bishops to act.
May 4, 2004	•	Yankee, Come Home! The torture revelations aren’t spoiling an otherwise warm relationship between America and Islam.
April 29, 2004	•	Sympathy for the Savage Civilized men may commit savage acts; but savages commit them as a matter of course.
April 27, 2004	•	The Tragedy of Iraq During wartime, it’s considered unpatriotic to suggest that politicians are wasting lives in addition to money.
April 22, 2004	•	Alex Revisited On a bad day Frank Deford is merely very good. On his best days he is unforgettable.
April 20, 2004	•	Waste Your Vote I propose a test: let’s end American imperialism and increase American freedom and see whether terrorist attacks continue. Critics of this proposal have been doing it their way for a long time now, and they may take pride in the results if they like.
April 15, 2004	•	Land of the Serf Albert Jay Nock said it best and he didn’t even need a complete sentence: Our enemy, the state.
April 13, 2004	•	Bush’s Lame Tongue What can we expect but more bad tidings, more new enemies, more death and horror?
April 8, 2004	•	Conscience and Terrorism From Muqtada al-Sadr’s point of view, Iraq has a massive problem with illegal aliens.
April 6, 2004	•	Taking the Bait Is Osama bin Laden disappointed with the way things have turned out?
April 1, 2004	•	Advice for Notre Dame The compliment of high expectations
March 30, 2004	•	Seeing Double Something worse than false comity: real comity
March 25, 2004	•	Bush League Fantasies Shooting in all directions at once
March 23, 2004	•	Chutzpah and Hubris Terrorism is not an enemy.
March 18, 2004	•	Reelect Bush If there’s a gun pointed at you
March 16, 2004	•	Masterminds George W. Bush — American mastermind
March 11, 2004	•	Hollywood, Old and New What does Hollywood believe in?
March 9, 2004	•	The Case of Dr. Lopez The very fact that Christian countries often expelled Jews suggests that the Jews didn’t want to leave. Why not?
March 4, 2004	•	Same-Sex Marriage and the Living Document Since we no longer agree on what the meaning of is is, let alone sex, it’s no wonder we can’t agree on marriage.
March 2, 2004	•	Gibson’s Goal A new kind of vilification — calumnious prediction
February 26, 2004	•	Gibson’s “Excessive Violence” When people can’t mean what they say, you are entitled to doubt that they’re saying what they mean.
February 24, 2004	•	Gibson and His Psyche Liberalism finally thinks it knows what pornography is.
February 19, 2004	•	Gibson and His Enemies If the entire religion centered on hostility to the Jews, why not blame the founder himself?
February 17, 2004	•	The Grim Secularist Kerry merely offers a different set of evils.
February 12, 2004	•	Scandal Time What would WJC do?
February 10, 2004	•	Faulty Intelligence Building a new society means leaving an old one in ruins.
February 5, 2004	•	War and Crime Saddam Hussein may have been the the only one who was telling the truth about those WMDs.
February 3, 2004	•	An Honest Mistake And besides, the principles of Nuremberg were never meant to apply to victorious countries.
January 29, 2004	•	A Strategy for Kerry For real conservatives, the duller the campaign is, the better.
January 27, 2004	•	Buzz Lightyear for President! Today’s democracies make the old totalitarian regimes seem rather quaint by comparison.
January 22, 2004	•	Burton’s Lost Hamlet If nothing else, this production tells you what kind of cultural fraud could be perpetrated in 1964.
January 20, 2004	•	The New JFK Finally! A Democrat who has never even been mentioned in The National Enquirer!
January 15, 2004	•	Election-Year Forecast Lying just comes with the territory.
January 13, 2004	•	Brown Reconsidered Now courts don’t even bother citing any specific passage of a constitution that might be construed to mean what they say it means.
January 8, 2004	•	One Nation, under Secularism? We all assume things we don’t even know we’re assuming.
January 6, 2004	•	Purging the Neocons Their good name is at stake.
January 1, 2004	•	All We Like Sheep The fraud we take for granted

Column Archives, 2004