Last week Dan Rodricks, a local columnist for The Baltimore Sun, wrote about being issued a $40 speeding ticket after an unmanned speed camera clocked his car going 40 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone. He thought it was terribly unfair, because the stretch of road with the speed camera ran by a deserted cemetery, and he thought the cameras were supposed to be placed only in school zones and work zones.

I admit to feeling a moment — just a moment, mind you — of the smug satisfaction liberals must feel when a prominent conservative gets caught doing something unconservative, like soliciting sex in the little boys’ room.

Rodricks is a liberal and, as he says, “I support speed cameras.” So when his own puppy jumps up and bites him on the butt, it’s hard to resist taunting him, “Nyah! Nyah! See, I told you so!”.

But I will resist, partly because Rodricks has a valid complaint. And it’s not just about the speed camera not being anywhere near a school or work zone. The state law authorizing counties and municipalities to set up unmanned speed cameras requires that signs inform motorists that they are in a school or work zone where speed is photo-enforced. The law also requires that warnings, without fines, be issued for the first 30 days a speed camera is in place, but Rodricks was ordered to pay a fine for a violation that took place only eight days after the camera was placed at that location. Read more »

Ever since I had some very expensive dental work done back in the early ’90s, I have flossed my teeth every day with an almost religious devotion. I usually do this around 8 p.m., after the dishes are put away and I’m ready to wind down.

It takes me about a half hour and two hands to do a really thorough flossing job so, to keep my mind occupied while leaving my hands free for sawing and scraping, I plop myself down in front of the TV and switch on the O’Reilly Factor. I watch O’Reilly because I don’t want to start a movie I’ll probably never finish, and because all the other offerings in the eight o’clock time slot are so dreadful.

One thing I don’t watch Bill O’Reilly for is Bill O’Reilly. I like his regular contributors — Bernard Goldberg, Dennis Miller, Laura Ingraham, Megyn Kelly, John Stossel, etc. — but O’Reilly himself comes across as a boorish know-it-all. He is supposed to be a conservative, but he is neither a libertarian nor a Constitutionalist. His “conservatism” is like that of the lout at the corner bar who spends the evening annoying bar patrons who are trying to watch the hockey game that’s playing on the big screen TV, ranting about a government that has no business telling him what to do, and then winding up his tirade with the proclamation, “There ought to be a law!”. Read more »

Dave Weigel has probably never heard of Allen Drury and is of such a tender age that he almost certainly has never read Drury’s 1966 novel, Capable of Honor. Which is a shame, because he might have recognized somebody familiar.

Capable of Honor, the third in a series of political thrillers that began with the 1959 mega-bestseller Advise and Consent, dealt with the role of the news media in national politics. While the novel has long been out of print, it is notable for having introduced a memorable phrase into the American language: “standing tall in Georgetown”.

Anyone familiar with the intellectual and cultural milieu of the nation’s capital will grasp the meaning of the phrase immediately. It refers to the tendency of those who come to Washington to go native, to gradually abandon the ideals that brought them there and adopt the worldview of their new environment. The phrase is most often applied to Republican Congressmen who were elected on platforms of fiscal conservatism but, after a few years in office, forget the principles that got them elected and join the other pigs at the trough. Read more »

I like thrillers, especially thrillers with conspiracy themes. When I read one, I usually do it in one sitting, taking a break only to go to the bathroom or fix myself another cup of coffee.

It doesn’t matter if I believe in the conspiracy or not. A good fiction writer can persuade me to temporarily suspend disbelief and draw me into his story. For example, I knew the conspiracy at the heart of Dan Brown’s The da Vinci Code was a crock and the “history” it presented as evidence was distorted, but it didn’t stop me from enjoying the novel.

On the other hand, a novel based on a plausible conspiracy supported by actual history can, nevertheless, be a bore. Glenn Beck’s new thriller, The Overton Window, isn’t a bore, but it didn’t pass my one-sitting test, either. (True, I had a lot of other things to do yesterday, when I sat down to read it. But if a novel is truly gripping, I’ll put off everything — including eating — in order to finish it. As it happened, I didn’t finish it until this morning.)

Don’t get me wrong. It’s still an enjoyable read, but it doesn’t come up to the level of a Dan Brown or Michael Crichton thriller. Read more »

A couple weeks ago Robert A. Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute, co-authored a Washington Post op-ed with John D. Podesta, president of the leftish Center for American Progress, in which they urged the courts to invalidate the will of Californians and residents of the 30 other states where voters have rejected same-sex marriage.

The involvement of Cato, a self-described libertarian think tank, on the side of those pushing for same-sex marriage is disturbing on two counts. First, Levy is urging judges to legislate from the bench, to overrule the citizenry, who have expressed their will in the clearest way possible: through direct referendum. Second, he argues for his position, both here and in an op-ed back in January in the New York Daily News, on the basis of equality rather than liberty.

Libertarians have a long history in the struggle for gay rights. In the early 1970s the Libertarian Party took a principled stand in support of repealing state sodomy statutes. These were the laws that were used to justify police persecution of gay people, such as the raid that resulted in the Stonewall riots in June 1969 — the event that marked the beginning of the gay rights movement. Read more »