Author Archives: Daniel Koffler

A fragment of a Lost Gospel, recovered from the banks of the Quinnipiac and translated into English from Ugaritic in the Year of Our Lord the Two Thousand and Sixth: “Brothers and sisters, I bring glad tidings — the Kingdom of Heaven is nigh. I [name illegible], a humble lamb in the flock of God, »

The English language, George Orwell noted, “becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” Here are two specimens of ugly and inaccurate language that recently appeared on this page: Loren Krywanczyk — “It is the obligation of those of »

It is possible there have been months in human history more globally abysmal than February 2006 for the cause of free expression, but none comes to mind. This year’s commemoration of Febris, the Roman god of malaria, coincided with a violent and explosive turn in the Intoonfada, theretofore largely peaceful. Two weeks ago, I did »

What are the “root causes,” to borrow the terminology of the sectarian left, of the Cartoon Intifada? On Sept. 17 of last year, the liberal Danish newspaper Politiken ran a story about author Kare Bluitgen, whose efforts to write a children’s book on Islam and its chief prophet had been stymied by the fact that »

Assuming the verity of Priya Raman’s recent report on David Atlas (“Atlas ’08 alleges abuse by NHPD,” 1/24), it is not difficult to imagine the events surrounding Atlas’s abortive prosecution and exoneration. NHPD officers arrested Atlas because they didn’t like his attitude, charged him with an offense they knew he did not commit, then tried »

A series of revelations this new year has shifted the semantics of the case for President Bush’s impeachment profoundly. A Dec. 16 New York Times article set off the cascade, uncovering offenses the president personally authorized that are criminal in more than a metaphorical sense, and are more than merely offensive to those who share »

The War on Christmas is worse than you thought. If you don’t believe me, ask Fox News Channel personality John Gibson. How proficient at sniffing out liberal conspiracies is Gibson? In a March editorial urging Jeb Bush to mount a putsch against the Florida judiciary by kidnapping the corpse of Terri Schiavo from the hospice »

In the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court struck down an allegedly virtue-inculcating state law barring the distribution of contraceptives to married couples, on the grounds that a right to privacy, not enumerated in the Constitution, nevertheless subsisted in the penumbras of the enumerated rights, protecting citizens against undue government intrusion into »

Suppose your hometown will soon be holding an election for dog-catcher. Candidate A has spent years advocating on behalf of women, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered persons, and racial and religious minorities. He supports the right of graduate, undergraduate and high school students to form unions. He favors an annual increase in the minimum wage commensurate »

Aside from The New York Times’ sore-winner editorial of June 24 — which valorized the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kelo v. New London while neglecting to mention that the Times Co. acquired its current property through a fairly egregious use of eminent domain — full-throated defenses of the Kelo decision have been scarce. Against a »

On the occasion of his death in April, I wrote in this space (“Pope’s legacy is a few shades short of golden,” 4/18/05) that John Paul II’s papacy, through its errors and misconduct, had succeeded in destroying both Catholic sainthood and the Catholic priesthood as categories worthy of any special recognition. I did not mean »

A president has a right to nominate judges who share his view of the scope of government authority. This president’s view, argued before federal courts and the public, is that the notion of limits on executive power in any matter of national security is itself unconstitutional. (And, to be sure, what makes a matter one »