Ross Douthat

It hasn’t received that much coverage over here, but a recent Guardian editorial raised the possibility that the intelligence used to break up the terror plot in London was obtained, at least in part, by Pakistani torturers. This has already led some anti-torture voices to call into question . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at his Crunchy Con blog, Rod Dreher links to an interesting investigative piece on the world of Ole Anthony, the ascetic Texan who runs a Christian commune called the Trinity Foundation in Dallas and serves as a self-appointed watchdog for the excesses of televangelists. Journalists tend to . . . . Continue Reading »

For anyone who isn’t sick of the debate over Mel Gibson, anti-Semitism, and whether people who liked The Passion should repent in sackcloth and ashes now that its creator’s sheets-to-the-wind sentiments about the Jews have been revealed, I’d recommend dipping into Mark . . . . Continue Reading »

I generally agree with the comments so far emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself, the necessity of using force against evil men, and the danger of applying “turn-the-other-cheek” logic to affairs of state. (As Robert T. Miller rightly points out, governments are not human . . . . Continue Reading »

Responding to my doubts about the prudence of recent war making (the United States in Iraq, Israel in Lebanon), Jody points out ¯ quite rightly¯that nobody can know to a precise degree of certainty whether a war will be successful before it is waged, and that blunders in the course of a . . . . Continue Reading »

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion,Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century by Kevin Phillips Viking, 480 pages, $26.95 The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us by James Rudin Thunder’s Mouth, 300 pages, $26 Kingdom Coming: The Rise . . . . Continue Reading »