Ross Douthat

Do you know what I really dislike? Extremely long critical essays that describe their subject, often in painstaking and florid detail, without bothering to interpret it. Like, for instance, this NYRB essay on The Sopranos: In more than 5,000 words, Geoffrey O'Brien manages to tell us almost nothing about the show that a reasonably literate viewer doesn't already know. This is the essay for you if you never noticed that on The Sopranos, "bad or misconstrued… More »

I've finished the book, but my thoughts will take a little while to sort themselves into proper criticism; for now, if you don't mind spoilers, start with Russell Arben Fox and Eve Tushnet and work your way deeper into the internets from there. Update: It doesn't deal with Deathly Hallows, but I quite liked Megan McArdle's piece on the economics of Harry Potter, or "Why are the Weasleys poor?" More »

Jonah leans that way, but with caveats; Jason Zengerle looks at Congress's recent anti-prostitution gestures; Ramesh writes that "maybe one reason that Vitter hasn't been more forcefully and widely condemned is that our law and culture don't treat prostitution as simply 'illegal,' like drug dealing ...You can't advertise for drug deals in the yellow pages, but you basically can for prostitution." He also asks "how far" we want to take Ruth Marcus' reasoning "that… More »

It's not the Harry Potter reaction you all (okay, maybe just a few of you) are waiting for, but you can find my review of Sammy's House, by Kristin Gore, in this Sunday's Times. More »

Jonathan Last has all the predictions you'll need. Megan McArdle and Kieran Healy, meanwhile, remind me why Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - where the Lost-style "everybody acts like idiots" phenomenon they identify was at its worst - was far and away the most irritating book in the saga. Meanwhile, this old John Holbo post identifies the pastiche (actually, one of several pastiches) that's at the heart of the Potter mystique. As for me, just like with… More »

I am, however, in agreement with Robert Kagan when he argues that American predominance will persist long after the Iraq War: ... foreign policy failures do not necessarily undermine predominance. Some have suggested that failure in Iraq would mean the end of predominance and unipolarity. But a superpower can lose a war — in Vietnam or in Iraq — without ceasing to be a superpower if the fundamental international conditions continue to support its predominance.… More »

Robert Kagan: Historians will long debate the decision to go to war in Iraq, but what they are least likely to conclude is that the intervention was wildly out of character for the United States. Since the end of World War II at least, American presidents of both parties have pursued a fairly consistent approach to the world. They have regarded the United States as the “indispensable nation” and the “locomotive at the head of mankind.” They have amassed… More »

As celebrity altercations go, this one - and the backstory - is pretty remarkable. More »

Via Larison, here's Jim Pinkerton: ... with all due respect to former Vice President Al Gore, we might as well just say it bluntly: Muslims with atomic weapons are a greater threat to America than global warming.When kids see "Harry Potter," they should be thinking first about defending their country, and their civilization, against evildoers wielding weapons of mass destruction. After that's taken care of, they can then worry more about carbon dioxide. Or perhaps… More »

Ruth Marcus is right about David Vitter, and E.J. Dionne and David Ignatius are flat wrong: Making use of a prostitution ring isn't a private matter, and Vitter should not be sitting in the United States Senate while the "D.C. Madam" is facing up to 55 years in prison for selling what he was apparently interested in buying. I hope Deborah Jeane Palfrey does call him as a witness, so that he can explain how his phone number ended up on her call list, and whether the… More »

John Podhoretz and Peter Robinson both dismiss Michael Gerson's case for a Rudy-Nixon analogy. Here's JPod: ... unlike Nixon in 1968, Giuliani actually has a record of executive governance ... During his eight years in New York, he cut welfare benefits, cut two dozen taxes, balanced budgets, and used recsission powers to refuse to spend boondoggle money voted by the City Council. He achieved extensive deregulation and sought (unsuccessfully, and unfortunately)… More »

Against my blog semi-triumphalism, Reihan offers a a qualified defense of non-blog forms of web journalism: ... to the extent the Slates and NROs and TNRs and Salons of the world serve as curators and gardeners, trimming, pruning, and shaping, I think they'll continue to serve a valuable and valued function. ... Consider The New Republic under Andrew Sullivan, much maligned by liberals today and celebrated at the time. As a collection of strange personalities, the… More »

This WSJ piece, on the revival of religion in Europe, dovetails perfectly with my argument in the last Atlantic that European life - and particularly European politics - may be partially desecularizing (even as a mass secularism rises in America). Which is reason enough to be suspicious of it: Every writer should be wary of arguments that coincide too neatly with his own. So yes, there are real signs that faith may be making something of a comeback on the… More »

Words to choke on. Anyway, here's your 2007 Best Picture Winner. More »

... is up, courtesy of the Baltimore Sun. And perhaps for fear of various legal repercussions, it says very little in very few words. But I detect a spoilerish tinge to it even so, so read at your own risk. (This means you, Russell Arben Fox!) Update: They've put up a longer version. More »

I'm reminded that John Podhoretz shared the thinking woman's take on Knocked Up: Alison decides to keep the baby and to try and see whether she and Ben can forge a relationship. Ben has nothing else going on--and besides, Alison is hot, so he's game. In furtherance of her goal, Alison asks Ben what he usually expects to do on a second date. He responds that he generally expects oral sex (the actual dialogue is far more explicit). And he doesn't seem to be kidding,… More »

Just a quick response to Ramesh's characteristically thoughtful post on the question of Bush's heresies, or lack thereof. I agree that neither Christianity nor Anglo-American conservatism is necessarily incompatitable with the following propositions: That human beings have political rights that are a gift from Almighty God, that democracy is to be preferred to tyranny, and that the U.S. has a moral obligation to support human rights-recognizing, democratic… More »

It has a certain ring to it ... More »

As fellow laborers in the thankless but necessary task of convincing readers everywhere to pay no further attention to Alan Wolfe, I commend the efforts of Daniel McCarthy, R.R. Reno, and Kevin Holtsberry. More »

Dana Goldstein: By “argue big,” Obama meant expanding the terms of the pro-choice debate beyond access to abortion, contraception, and comprehensive sexuality education and into a larger discussion about family planning and work-life balance for women. He called for “updating the social contract” with gender pay equity, paid maternal leave, and longer school hours that make it easier for mothers to work. From the latest Pew survey on working mothers:… More »