Latest Articles

Sympathy for the Devil

April 27, 2013  •  The American

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, Americans are again searching for motives. It is our way of dealing with acts that shock and outrage our collective sensibilities. We looked for motives after the Oklahoma City bombing and after 9/11. We looked for them in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, when we asked ourselves what motive a young man could have to kill first graders. But what exactly are we doing when we go in search of a motive for such crimes?

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

North Korea's Bluffing Blowhard

April 6, 2013  •  The American

On February 12, 2013, North Korea announced to the world that it had conducted an underground nuclear test, its third in seven years. Had this announcement come from any other nation, it would no doubt have been accepted at face value. But North Korea is not any other nation. "As is usual with tests by the secretive North," the New York Times noted at the time, "it was not even clear if the underground test was nuclear, rather than conventional bomb blasts meant to mimic an underground nuclear test." Indeed, two days after the test, no trace of radiation had been discovered by North Korea's neighbors, South Korea, China, and Japan. The lack of such traces does not prove that the North Korean test was a hoax, but the fact that we cannot be absolutely certain whether it was a hoax indicates just how little we really know about North Korea and its new leader, Kim Jong-un, and how difficult it is for foreign observers to assess what is merely bluff and what is a real and genuine threat.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Why Not Soak the Rich?

March 6, 2013  •  The American

It would be easy to dismiss the current battle of the budget as simply partisan politics at its worst, but both sides are convinced that they are in a contest over genuine principles. In terms of the propaganda war, however, liberal Democrats have maintained a marked advantage over their conservative Republican rivals, because they have been able to define the principle that is supposedly animating Republican opposition to the White House budget proposal. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did this just the other day when he said that "my Republican colleagues are standing in the way of a solution. They only want cuts and more cuts. They are willing to sacrifice three quarters of a million jobs rather than ask multimillionaires to pay a penny more."

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Enlightened Conservatism

February 18, 2013  •  The American

On the night of November 25, 1882, Gilbert and Sullivan premiered their seventh comic opera at the recently finished Savoy Theatre in London. Unlike their previous collaborations, such as the "H.M.S. Pinafore" and "The Pirates of Penzance," "Iolanthe" was a clear example of what we would today call political satire, poking fun at such venerable British institutions as the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Lord Chancellor. Yet Gilbert and Sullivan were no revolutionaries. They were not even interested in reforming the abuses that they so cleverly mocked. Indeed, if their work could be said to champion any political position, it was one that might best be called enlightened conservatism.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Can the GOP Be Saved?
The Myth of the Demographic Fix

January 30, 2013  •  The American

The four more years that the American electorate has granted President Obama will most likely be spent by the Republicans in feuding over the soul and destiny of their party. From the point of view of making the next Republican presidential nominee electable, it is difficult to imagine a worse strategy. After all, the last great Republican feud — the one that broke out between President Taft and Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 — ended in the election of a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, and the current feud may put yet another Democrat in the White House in 2016. Yet there seems no way around the coming feud, and this fact by itself is a bit puzzling.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Books by Lee Harris