“Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue,’ I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss.”
— Matthew Continetti, The Washington Post, Nov. 17
Somehow we doubt that a lot…
A wounded soldier from the 10th Mountain Division is evacuated from Afghanistan in August. (David Goldman/AP)
For decades historians have argued whether, had he lived, President John F. Kennedy would have sent the nation full tilt into Vietnam the way President Lyndon…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Last week, Gov. Jay Nixon whacked another $203.7 million from the state’s budget. He’d already cut $385 million in July, and vetoed another $105 million when he signed the $23 billion budget in June.
The governor really had no choice.…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet today with the Joint Chiefs of Staff amid reports that he is close to a decision on new U.S. strategies in Afghanistan.
Not surprisingly for a president who has made conciliation the watchword of…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
This must be emphasized: Whatever Gov. Jay Nixon is saying this week, the Lake of the Ozarks is safe for fishing and boating. And nearly all of its 55,000 acres are safe for swimming, too. But more should be done…
Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for TARP. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
A year ago Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected the Bush administration’s proposed $700 billion financial bailout plan, causing the largest one-day point drop in Wall Street history and the loss…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
On Thursday, state Rep. T.D. El-Amin, D-St. Louis, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of soliciting and accepting $2,100 in bribes.
Bad. Very bad. As state Rep. Joe Smith, R-St. Charles, told the Post-Dispatch’s Jake Wagman, it causes people to ask,…
Afghanistan: Uphill all the way. (LA Times photo)
America’s involvement in Afghanistan in 2009 has begun to look like its involvement Iraq in 2005: Insurgency is growing. The government we helped install is feckless and at least partly corrupt. We don’t…
R.J. Matson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
As the Prague Chamber Orchestra’s recording of Mozart’s Symphony No. 2 ended his morning drive program on KFUO-FM Tuesday, Tom Sudholt, the deep-voiced classical music deejay, noted it was the 25th of August and said, “Where…
With a TV image of Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in the background, Judge Sonia Sotomayor shows the strain of last week's confirmation hearings.
History will show that Sonia Sotomayor would become the first person of Hispanic heritage to serve on the…
Super Hornet: More of these.
On Tuesday, 10 U.S. senators and House members got together in a room in the Capitol and saved the jobs of 900 St. Louisans, 5,000 Californians and thousands more around the country.
They did this by deciding to…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Alas, poor Manny Ramirez. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ slugger was suspended for 50 games last week — which will cost him roughly $7.7 million in salary — for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug.
Alas, for that matter, poor Mark…
Actors in a production of Lysistrata at Douglas College in British Columbia
A coalition of women’s organizations in Kenya has claimed success in its one-week “bedroom boycott,” aimed at pressuring the African nation’s largely male coalition government to enact reforms.
Taking their cue…
One possible result of tax-cut plan.
Buried deep in Missouri House Bill 20, one of 22 appropriations bills that outline how state money will be spent next year, is a $1.6 million appropriation for the care of foster kids in the custody…
Pirates off Somalia: Not exactly Johnny Depp.
Jimmy Carter sent the Delta Force to rescue hostages, and their helicopters crashed. Ronald Reagan sent peacekeepers to Lebanon, and 241 of them died when their barracks were blown up. Bill Clinton sent the…
Was this man a socialist?
In the second volume of Edmund Morris’ magnificent (and still in progress) biography of Theodore Roosevelt, we find Elihu Root, Roosevelt’s great friend and one-time secretary of state, reminiscing about TR’s war with the railroad industry in…
F-22 Raptor: We'll buy fewer of these.
In his farewell address as president, Dwight Eisenhower, who knew a thing or two about war, coined the phrase “military-industrial complex” to describe the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry…
It may be, with the gloomy headlines from Washington, Wall Street, Detroit and elsewhere, that more Americans than usual are restive this Thanksgiving.
Unemployment and uncertainty are up. Confidence is down. Retailers are looking at a bleak holiday season. The president-elect,…
Please make yourself at home within our new blog in which members of the Post-Dispatch editorial page staffers engage with you directly to extend conversations beyond the printed pages. Respectful and direct online conversations online will add an important new…
