Jonathan Last

Third Rail Watch
August 18th, 2011

Picking up on Norman Podhoretz’s WSJ piece on Obama, Matt Patterson writes an essay titled “Obama: The Affirmative Action President.”

No comments yet, be the first:

"We should have called it The Virtue Rises. Humbug." — JVL

In the midst of PC police, low-budget holiday movies, and mandatory in-law time, the only Christmas spirit on most people's minds these days is the kind that comes in a flask.

"It's long and it doesn't have Spider-Man in it anywhere." — Cody Last

From the all-star cast who brought you The Seven Deadly Virtues comes a book with a look at the good life… or the crazy-stressful-overwhelmed life… of a father. As anyone who has spent time with a child knows, fatherhood is a mixed bag of fun, fury, and failure. So much is lost—no more catnaps during football commercials, no more exotic vacations or impromptu day trips. And yet, as authors like P. J.…

"The best argument for chastity since Bea Arthur." — Andrew Ferguson

An all-star team of eighteen conservative writers offers a hilarious, insightful, sanctimony-free remix of William Bennett’s The Book of Virtues—without parental controls. The Seven Deadly Virtues sits down next to readers at the bar, buys them a drink, and an hour or three later, ushers them into the revival tent without them even realizing it. The book’s contributors include Sonny Bunch, Christopher Buckley, David “Iowahawk” Burge, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Jonah Goldberg, Michael…

""A powerful argument that the only thing worse than having children is not having them."" — P. J. O'Rourke

For years, we have been warned about the looming danger of overpopulation: people jostling for space on a planet that’s busting at the seams and running out of oil and food and land and everything else. It’s all bunk. The “population bomb” never exploded. Instead, statistics from around the world make clear that since the 1970s, we’ve been facing exactly the opposite problem: people are having too few babies. Population…

Follow @JVLast

JVL Elsewhere

Disney Princesses: Ranked
Acculturated

Four Reasons Trump Will Lose to Clinton
The Weekly Standard

The Rubio Post Mortem
WeeklyStandard.com

The Golden Age of Kids TV
Acculturated

Lion Ted
WeeklyStandard.com

Time to Leave the GOP?
The Weekly Standard

Review: The Circus
Acculturated

Trump Debate: A pair of pliers and a blowtorch
WeeklyStandard.com

Trumpism Corrupts
The Weekly Standard

Crush Trump on "Bush Lied"
WeeklyStandard.com

Inside Hillary's Numbers
The Weekly Standard

Antonin Scalia: RIP
WeeklyStandard.com

Chris Christie's Endgame
WeeklyStandard.com

Falling for Bernie Sanders
WeeklyStandard.com

Rubio's Bad Debate
WeeklyStandard.com

Jeb's Last Stand
WeeklyStandard.com

Kasich!
WeeklyStandard.com

Hillary Gets Worse
The Weekly Standard

Trump in NH
WeeklyStandard.com

Rubio: The Natural
WeeklyStandard.com

Alan Rickman, RIP
Acculturated

Trump Creationism
WeeklyStandard.com

Fear of AI
Acculturated

Droids Are Slaves
The Washington Free Beacon

The Students Stand Up
The Weekly Standard

Multiculturalism and Korean Hulk
Acculturated

Power and the Campus Protests
The Weekly Standard

The War on Christmas Virtues
WeeklyStandard.com

Why Bathrooms Matter
The Weekly Standard

The CNBC Debate Quiz
WeeklyStandard.com

The Obama of Rome
The Weekly Standard

The Final Six
WeeklyStandard.com

Jeb's Dead
WeeklyStandard.com

The Jedi the Bad Guys
The Federalist

On Disney Fairies
Acculturated

Francis: Menace or Farce?
WeeklyStandard.com

RFRA and Religious Liberty
Mosaic

The Cult of Lego
Acculturated

Tom Cruise = Awesome
Acculturated

In Defense of Ashton Kutcher
Acculturated

When Trump Met Perot and Jesse Ventura
WeeklyStandard.com

Trump Is the Ghost of Ross Perot
WeeklyStandard.com

The Threat to Religious Liberty
The Weekly Standard

The Gay Marriage Post Mortem
WeeklyStandard.com

RIP: Ben Wattenberg
WeeklyStandard.com

Gay Marriage Bait-and-Switch
The Weekly Standard

P. Diddy: Hockey Mom
Acculturated

Leah Still > Caitlyn Jenner
Acculturated

Jurassic Park = Awesome
Acculturated

Paul Ehrlich: History's Greatest Monster
WeeklyStandard.com

The Math of Pitch Perfect 2
Acculturated

A Dad's Life
The Weekly Standard

Smith's Transgender Troubles

4 Reason Rand Won't Win

Lawnmower Man
The Weekly Standard

The Culture War Goes Nuclear
WeeklyStandard.com

In Praise of the Patriots
WeeklyStandard.com

Japan's Robot Babies
WeeklyStandard.com

In Praise of the Patriots
WeeklyStandard.com

Romney 2016!
WeeklyStandard.com

Lego Brickenomics 101
The Weekly Standard

Review: Unbreakable Bonds
The Weekly Standard

A Victims of Communism Museum
The Weekly Standard

Virtues, Past and Present
The Weekly Standard

Ebola: Six Reasons to Panic
The Weekly Standard

Review: Pearlstein's 'Broken Bonds'
The Weekly Standard

Chris & Me
The Weekly Standard

Giving Up Game of Thrones
The Weekly Standard

The Trouble with Patent Trolls
The Weekly Standard

In Defense of Prince Hans
WeeklyStandard.com

Illy and Me
The Weekly Standard

Friedman, Agassi, and the Better Place
WeeklyStandard.com

On HOT Lanes
The Weekly Standard

Mary Jane and the Empire of Youth
The Weekly Standard

Review: Terms of Engagement
The Weekly Standard

Review: Shoemaker's "Squared Circle"
The Wall Street Journal

Ocean Grove
The Weekly Standard

HealthCare.gov and Privacy
The Weekly Standard

Park Police II: Hot Cops
WeeklyStandard.com

Inconvenient Data on Gay Marriage and Kids
WeeklyStandard.com

The Park Police
The Weekly Standard

The '70s vs. the '00s
The Weekly Standard

Review: Sabin's "The Bet"
The Wall Street Journal

In Defense of Batfleck
Acculturated

Gay Wrestling!
WeeklyStandard.com

About the Time Cover Story
WeeklyStandard.com

Erika Harold Runs for Congress
The Weekly Standard

About "Superman-Batman"
WeeklyStandard.com

Review: Eberstadt's "How the West Lost God"
The Weekly Standard

Signage in Exurbia
The Weekly Standard

Boomsa for the Motherland
Slate

Hawley, Marriage, and the GOP
The Weekly Standard

"Coercive Paternalism" at the NYT
WeeklyStandard.com

High Noon for Marriage
WeeklyStandard.com

Papal Anxiety
The Weekly Standard

America's Baby Bust
The Wall Street Journal

Bad Demographic Omens
WeeklyStandard.com

Japan's Demographic Cliff
WeeklyStandard.com

In Defense of Douthat
WeeklyStandard.com

A Nation of Singles
The Weekly Standard

Review: The Law of Superheroes
The Wall Street Journal

The Lessons of 2004
The Weekly Standard

South Korea's Missing Children
The Weekly Standard

Babies and Recession
WeeklyStandard.com

Review: A History of Marvel
The Wall Street Journal

More on Childlessness in America
WeeklyStandard.com

Big Bird Business
The Weekly Standard

America the (Child)Free
WeeklyStandard.com

Catholic U. and Stephen Schneck
The Weekly Standard

Romney's Moocher Theory of Politics
WeeklyStandard.com

The Party of Abortion
The Weekly Standard

The New Muslim Green Lantern
WeeklyStandard.com

The End of the Pro-Life Dems
WeeklyStandard.com

The Kids Are Not Alright
The Daily Standard

Chris Christie: The Pride of NJ
The Daily Standard

Batman: The Nerd Opus
The Weekly Standard

Review: Free the Orcas
The Wall Street Journal

Romney's Bad Breaks
The Daily

Review: Eberstadt and The Pill
The Weekly Standard

Obama's Tax Gambit
The Daily

Capitalism's Brave New World
The Weekly Standard

When the Left Loses
The Daily

Greece and the Euro
The Daily

Obama's Good Luck
The Daily

The Gay Green Lantern
The Daily

Bride of Stuxnet
The Weekly Standard

Blockbusted
The Daily

Romney's Big Month
The Daily

The (Gay) Batman
WeeklyStandard.com

Obama's Magic
The Daily

Mob on the Quad: Part Deux
WeeklyStandard.com

Mob on the Quad
WeeklyStandard.com

Shop Talk
The Weekly Standard

The "Overpopulation" Hoax
The Daily

Review: What Money Can't Buy
The Wall Street Journal

Wrongful Birth
The Weekly Standard

Demography and Destiny
The Weekly Standard

The Politics of Obamacare
The Daily

Obama and Hayes
The Daily

Remembering Andrew Breitbart
WeeklyStandard.com

Pravda: Mesa Edition
WeeklyStandard.com

The Left's Sacred Dogma
The Weekly Standard

Romney vs. Satorum
The Weekly Standard

Obama vs. The Catholics
The Weekly Standard

The Twitter Plague
The Weekly Standard

Romney, Bain, & Staples
WeeklyStandard.com

Santorum and the Blue-Collar Vote
The Weekly Standard

How Many Cheers for Bain?
WeeklyStandard.com

The Siege of Newt
WeeklyStandard.com

A Romney Rally
WeeklyStandard.com

A Winning Message
The Weekly Standard

Jesus in New Hampshire
WeeklyStandard.com

Taking Aim at Santorum
WeeklyStandard.com

Santorum Arrives in New Hampshire
WeeklyStandard.com

Mitt & McCain: Together Again
WeeklyStandard.com

Iowa Night in New Hampshire
WeeklyStandard.com

A Tale of Two Ricks
WeeklyStandard.com

Romney and "The Music Man"
WeeklyStandard.com

Romney's "Electability"
The Weekly Standard

7 Billion People
The Weekly Standard

Harrisburg Goes Bust
The Weekly Standard

Comics and the New York Times
The Weekly Standard

Texas, Immigrants, Tuition
The Weekly Standard

Perry's Fade?
The Daily

China and One-Child
The Weekly Standard

Being Obama
The Weekly Standard

Faked in China
The Weekly Standard

The U.N.'s Imaginary Babies
Wall Street Journal

How Many Women Are Childless?
The Weekly Standard

Red Light Cameras
The Weekly Standard

Review: Grant Morrison
Wall Street Journal

Review: Unnatural Selection
Wall Street Journal

Review: The End and The Beginning
The Weekly Standard

Lessons from the Comic Book Bubble
The Weekly Standard

More on the DCU
The Weekly Standard

Mr. Rogers Among the Savages
The Weekly Standard

Two Cheers for Videogames
Acculturated

Superman No More
The Weekly Standard

Review: Selfish Reasons to Have Kids
Wall Street Journal

The WikiLeaks Bubble
The Weekly Standard

Electric Car Sales
The Weekly Standard

"Induced" Traffic
The Weekly Standard

Street Soccer
The Weekly Standard

In Defense of Chris Lee
The Daily Beast

Dishwasher Detergent Mania
The Weekly Standard

Review: The Price of Everything
Wall Street Journal

Poulsen, Manning, & Wikileaks
The Weekly Standard

How to Stop Wikileaks
The Weekly Standard

Ted, Teddy, and Natalism
The Weekly Standard

Stuxnet Redux
The Weekly Standard

American Narcissus
The Weekly Standard

American Narcissus: Part Deux
The Weekly Standard

American Narcissus III: This time, it's personal!
The Weekly Standard

American Narcissus IV: A New Hope
The Weekly Standard

American Narcissus V: The Final Insult
The Weekly Standard

Obama In Search of Cameras
The Weekly Standard

Odds on Obama Re-elect
The Weekly Standard

Review: Clay Shirky
The Weekly Standard

Hysteria on the Op-ed Page
The Weekly Standard

The Age of the Electric Car?
The Weekly Standard

Is Gillibrand in Trouble?
The Weekly Standard

Dirty Jersey
The Weekly Standard

Surf Local!
The Weekly Standard

Review: Framing Innocence
Wall Street Journal

Stuxnet
The Weekly Standard

America's One-Child Policy
The Weekly Standard

The Childfree Life
The Weekly Standard

Linda McMahon
The Weekly Standard

Richard John Neuhaus, RIP
First Things

The Case for the Empire
WeeklyStandard.com

Archives