Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Teddy Roosevelt on Twain – “I wish I could skin Mark Twain alive.” Twain on Roosevelt – “We have had no President before who was destitute of self-respect for his high office. We have had no President before who was not a gentleman; we have had no President before who was intended for a butcher, a dive-keeper or a bully...   Our people have adored this showy charlatan as perhaps no impostor of his brood has been adored since the Golden Calf, so it is to be expected that the Nation will want him back again after he is done hunting other wild animals heroically in Africa, with the safeguard and advertising equipment of a park of artillery and a brass band. ” Occasionally, columnists back up against a thorny subject much in the way an innocent traveler in the woods backs up against a porcupine. The collision is often painful for both the porcupine and the columnist. Although the deathless struggle between Twain and TR has been known for more than a century, it is rare...

Very likely the answer to Islamic terrorism, when it arrives, will have a spiritual component. Terrorists in Syria, Iran and Iraq are driven by a vision of conquest and glory, as was Mohammad in the 10th century. The West, outwardly materialistic and secular, is driven by a different vision. As Islamic purists might see it, we are the flesh, they are the spirit, and the two are at war with each other. Profound secularists in the West and terrorists in the East do not understand that for much of human history the two have commingled and informed each other. A war between the flesh and the spirit in which one of the two permanently vanquished the other would lead to a tyranny of angels or devils. The struggle before us in the 21st century occurs in a theatre of thought and action in which lions may lay down with lambs, provided there is no final victory between, to put it in modern terms, the claims of science and the claims of religion. But in the mean time, terrorists are roving the wo...

Liberals, who lost spectacularly in the recent elections, are being consoled -- by liberals. The results are what might be expected. There is no need to abandon, or even examine, the prejudices that led us to dusty defeat, they say, but some minor technical adjustments may be in order. Stick with your core beliefs, advises Keith Burris, Editorial Page Editor of the Journal Inquirer , but finesse your approach. What Democrats need is to rediscover and reaffirm the old values, which are as solid as the earth itself. They simply need to get back to Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt. They do need to be the party that will make national health insurance happen. They do need to be intellectually honest. For example: No, we cannot balance the budget and universalize health insurance at the same time. That does not compute. But we want to get national health care first. Or, Yes, the war was a mistake. A terrible one. Let's talk about how we undo and correct it. They do need to be aggressive...