Here’s an affirmative action plan: Study!


This article was originally published by Salon on June 23, 1997. President Clinton’s much-awaited statement on race has come and gone, and — as usual with this president — no one on either side of the argument is convinced that anything was said at all. Perhaps this says something about the general consciousness of the nation, [...]

The Bilingual Trap


Liberal do-gooder special language programs are a new form of slavery for Latino immigrants. But the immigrants
are fighting back, and a new ballot initiative could end bilingual education altogether.

American Apartheid


This column was originally published by Salon on July 18, 1997. A Clinton task force has unanimously recommended against adding a multiracial category to census forms, which now only list four official races: white, black, American Indian and Alaskan Native, and Asian and Pacific Islander. According to the Los Angeles Times, the recommendation marks a victory [...]

The Left’s Most Recent Human Sacrifice


The character assassination of Marty Peretz by his allies on the left is a familiar punishment for political incorrectness and an all too familiar sight. But the abandoning of Marty Peretz by people whose careers he fostered and whose reputations he made – among them Peter Beinart and this pipsqueak at the Times is particularly disgusting. It [...]

Black History Lesson


This column originally appeared at Salon on February 24, 1997. Fifty years ago this spring, Jackie Robinson broke the color bar in baseball. The events that followed provide a lesson for Black History Month — which ends this week — that many civil rights leaders seem to have forgotten. Following Robinson’s historic breakthrough, as everybody knows, [...]

Jim Sleeper, Frances Fox Piven and Me


Leftwing viper and racial demagogue Jim Sleeper last came to my attention when he attacked Jewish students for standing up to the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies at Yale. Now he rises to the defense of radical provocateur Frances Fox Piven, who only this month called for a bloody revolution in America. Of course, in [...]

Tom Hayden, Los Angeles and me


This column was originally published by Salon on March 3, 1997. Tom Hayden and I were once comrades-in-arms in a movement to overthrow America’s democratic institutions, remake its government in a Marxist image and help America’s enemies defeat her sons on the field of battle. Now he is running for mayor of Los Angeles and many people [...]

It’s the teachers, stupid


This column was originally published by Salon on February 17, 1997. Everybody from Newt Gingrich to Bill Clinton agrees that the crisis in our schools demands national action. Many proposals — raised standards, smaller classrooms — are already part of a bipartisan agenda. But no one seems to have the political spine to name the parties [...]

An Old Black Washer Woman Shall Lead Them


Oseola McCarty shows the way to a principled conservative worldview.

Conservatism needs a transplant


This column was originally published by Salon on October 6, 1997. It has become the topic of the season on the political right: Whatever happened to the triumph of conservatism? Recently, the Weekly Standard ran a cover symposium titled “Is There a Worldwide Conservative Crackup?” Conservative ideas appear to be ascendant, the editors pointed out, but [...]