Peter Lawler

So I’ve have a strangely debilitating and demoralizing summer cold. No comments, please, about my lack of manliness in whining about something I should find easy to fight through and rise above. But I’ve started to work on my talk next week at the ISI honors program. It’s on . . . . Continue Reading »

Obviously I can’t add much to Pete’s perfectly pitched analysis. I will emphasize that Romney’s campaign is not going that well. Obama—with the assistance of the MSM of course—is doing better than I would have guessed in pinning the heartless oligarch badge on him. . . . . Continue Reading »

here . . . . . Continue Reading »

. . . both died very recently. I pretty much don’t enjoy reading Cropsey’s elusive writing much. His famous statement about America being the stage on which modern thought is played out in popular consciousness always struck me as quite the exaggeration. But it’s likely the . . . . Continue Reading »

big thoughts here . . . . Continue Reading »

And I’m wrong again. . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s a capable summary of parts of our on tap discussion the night before the Obamacare decision’s release. As you see, I didn’t protect the result. I came closer than many by calling attention to the fact that the Court couldn’t recommend effectively than the mandate be . . . . Continue Reading »

on Roberts and Kennedy. . . . . Continue Reading »

It appears that I’ve been punished for saying that judicial activism through judicial restraint is impossible. I’m okay with Roberts working hard to find a way to uphold the law rather than strike it down 5-4. But in this case his method seems to have been to mangle the plain sense of . . . . Continue Reading »

1. I certainly wouldn’t mind abandoning the phrase, although someone should send the memo to Heritage (for example). 2. Judicial activism is becoming more nonpartisan or transpartisan as a concept. Our friend Ross Douthat writes today that conservatives should be happy that liberals are . . . . Continue Reading »