Latest Posts
Obama’s Weak “I’m No Nixon” Defense
Artur Davis - May 17, 2013
To no one’s surprise, a few feverish days of the unprecedented—establishment media organizations beating up on Barack Obama’s leadership—are already…
Obama’s Scandalous Seven Days in May
Artur Davis - May 14, 2013
No, the Obama Administration’s disaster of a week is not Watergate. Not unless Barack Obama is found scheming with his…
“The Americans”: Bad History, Great TV?
Artur Davis - May 8, 2013
It may be a middle aged man’s perspective, but I recall the 80s as much more vivid and alluring than…
Education and the Power of Choice
Artur Davis - May 3, 2013
It is not news that affluent families extend their advantage of wealth and connections to the next generation in ways…
Yet Another Way of Looking at George Bush
Artur Davis - April 29, 2013
The world is still waiting for an unpredictable take on George W. Bush, whose dedication of his presidential library has…
A Moment of Pause?
Artur Davis - April 22, 2013
This article also appeared on Ricochet.com on April 20, 2013. Who knows what this tortured week in Boston means for…
Obama the Polarizer
Artur Davis - April 18, 2013
Give the New Republic’s Adam Winkler credit for laying some of the blame for the collapse of background checks on…
Rand Paul’s Wasted Day at Howard
Artur Davis - April 12, 2013
Rand Paul’s speech at Howard University yielded about what would have been expected. The media focused on the crowd’s tepid…
Taking Ben Carson Seriously
Artur Davis - April 4, 2013
This article also appeared on Ricochet.com on April 4, 2013. Sometimes, a hackneyed, unoriginal argument still has a virtue: in…
The Next Round on Gay Marriage
Artur Davis - April 1, 2013
This article also appeared at Ricochet.com on March 28, 2013. It would not surprise me if there were six votes…
CPAC 2013 Speech
Artur Davis - March 20, 2013
This speech was delivered on Saturday, March 16, 2013 at CPAC 2013 Thank you, Steve. Good morning, CPAC. You know,…
Catholicism and the American Middle
Artur Davis - March 6, 2013
“When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law…
Defending Christie
Artur Davis - March 1, 2013
This article originally appeared on ricochet.com on March 1, 2013. Chris Christie has conservative admirers left, and I’m hardly the…
What Striking Down Section 5 Won’t Fix
Artur Davis - February 27, 2013
This article originally appeared on ricochet.com on February 27, 2013. The Supreme Court may be on the verge of striking down…
Cuomo and the Coming Democratic Dilemma
Artur Davis - February 25, 2013
The New Republic’s recent piece on Andrew Cuomo’s presidential ambitions will rankle most conservatives at first glance: its description of…
The Genius of “House of Cards”
Artur Davis - February 13, 2013
My guess is that if the Netflix political drama “House of Cards” had improbably gotten the backing of a network,…
The House That Rove Built
Artur Davis - February 11, 2013
Karl Rove has been spectacularly right about one big thing in his far-flung career: his calculation that Republicans in the…
A Winning Conservative Message
Artur Davis - January 29, 2013
The following is the prepared text of a speech Artur Davis delivered at the National Review Institute on January 27,…
Obama’s “Us Versus Them” Speech
Artur Davis - January 22, 2013
This article also appears at Ricochet.com The consensus about Barack Obama’s inaugural address is right. It is the most fulsome…
The Tempting of the Moderates
Artur Davis - January 14, 2013
The shortest distance in modern politics is the one between a Republican willing to denounce his party for extremism and…
A DLC For Republicans?
Artur Davis - January 8, 2013
I’ve written before that Republicans looking to recast themselves as middle class-friendly and more reform oriented should look for guidance…
Wishful Thinking In The New Year
Artur Davis - January 2, 2013
Having offered my perspective about the shape of a conservative rebound, I will end the year with a bout of…
A New Year’s Resolution For Conservatives
Artur Davis - December 28, 2012
This article will also appear in the January 2013 edition of Commentary Why, despite its periodic low points, does conservatism always…
Tim Scott’s Rise
Artur Davis - December 20, 2012
Tim Scott’s appointment to represent South Carolina in the US Senate has been met with a notable skepticism from most…
The Emerging Morality on Guns
Artur Davis - December 17, 2012
I am a conservative who believes that any philosophy is strengthened by reexamination. I do regard theory as a valuable…
Lincoln’s Lost World
Artur Davis - December 11, 2012
Steven Spielberg delayed the release of his movie on Abraham Lincoln to avoid the charge of hagiography, not of the…
The Case For Republicans Walking Away From The Budget Talks
Artur Davis - November 30, 2012
The notion that a reelected Barack Obama would revert to the centrist, bipartisan sounding Obama of the 2008 campaign trail…
Why Chris Christie Won’t Fade
Artur Davis - November 27, 2012
It is a measure of Chris Christie’s aura that serious people think his effusive praise of Barack Obama in the…
Toward a More Liberal South?
Artur Davis - November 26, 2012
I read Karen Cox’s provocative essay about what it takes to revive southern Democrats, (“A New Southern Strategy”), with a…
The Real Reason Democrats Held Their Base
Artur Davis - November 19, 2012
There are no ties weaker than the ones that bind politicians. So, no major surprise that surrogates who were just…
The Worst Republican Solutions
Artur Davis - November 15, 2012
The Republican self-assessments, and the hardly disinterested kibbitzing from liberal pundits, are as scattered as would be expected in the…
The New Republicans
Artur Davis - November 9, 2012
Well before Bill Clinton mastered the skill of political survival, and became the most consequential ex-president since Theodore Roosevelt, he…
The Republican Dilemma
Artur Davis - November 8, 2012
When all was said and done, this election did turn out to be 2004 again. A polarizing president with tepid…
The Case For Mitt Romney
Artur Davis - October 26, 2012
If it turns out the life of Barack Obama’s presidency is measured in months, left-leaning analysts will agonize over what…
McGovern Lives
Artur Davis - October 22, 2012
The eulogies for George McGovern, who just died at 90, have taken a predictable form: plaudits from the left for…
The Sneer Strategy
Artur Davis - October 15, 2012
Joe Biden’s alternately snarling, eye-rolling, interrupting, grinning, occasionally weird performance seems to have traded off two conflicting outcomes: temporarily motivating Democrats…
Obama’s Depressing Night
Artur Davis - October 9, 2012
To most observers, Barack Obama’s poor night in Denver seems as inexplicable on reflection as it did in the moment….
The Unbearable Emptiness of “Boss”
Artur Davis - September 28, 2012
If Showtime’s exemplary “Homeland” is the new pace-setter for politically themed drama, and CBS’s “Good Wife” is a successful, if…
The War of Gaffes
Artur Davis - September 24, 2012
Rick Perlstein, a elegant and perceptive left leaning writer, wrote a breathtaking account of sixties era polarization called “Nixonland”, which he marred…
Obama’s Middle East
Artur Davis - September 17, 2012
In its four years of re-setting American policy in the Middle East, the Obama Administration has made the following choices:…
The Democrats’ Fury
Artur Davis - September 10, 2012
How odd is it that Barack Obama’s acceptance speech seemed the least consequential part of the week that just ended…
Clinton’s Best Case
Artur Davis - September 7, 2012
This article also appeared in Politico on September 8, 2012. It’s a conceit of journalists who must take a stand…
Clinton For The Defense
Artur Davis - September 6, 2012
Last night, Bill Clinton was the consummate trial lawyer that he would have become had his Arkansas comebacks not worked…
The Takeaways From Tampa
Artur Davis - September 3, 2012
After two unaccustomed weeks away from writing on this site, I return with some observations about the shortened, but effective…
Column: Artur Davis and the Crucial Role of Party Switchers
Artur Davis - August 30, 2012
The following was penned by Reihan Salam and originally published by Reuters: If you’ve been watching the Republican National Convention…
Picket: Artur Davis Electrifies RNC Convention
Artur Davis - August 29, 2012
The following was penned by Kerry Picket and originally appeared in the Washington Times: Former Democratic Alabama Congressman Artur Davis,…
Republican National Convention Speech Transcript
Artur Davis -
This transcript first appeared on Real Clear Politics on August 28, 2012. The speech was delivered at the Republican National…
Obama’s Hidden-Hand Politics
Artur Davis - August 16, 2012
This article originally appeared in National Review on August 16, 2012. There has always been a measured slickness in how…
Artur Davis, who backed Obama in 2008, to speak at GOP convention
Artur Davis -
Written by David Fahrenthold, this article appeared in The Washington Post on August 16, 2012. Former congressman Artur Davis, who officially seconded…
The Ryan Downpayment
Artur Davis - August 13, 2012
I will offer the obligatory caveat: I know Paul Ryan from serving with him on two congressional committees during the…
Setting Welfare Back On Fire
Artur Davis - August 8, 2012
For the most part, Bill Clinton’s reconstruction of the Democratic Party is a masterpiece that did not survive the consummate…
Obama’s Left Turn
Artur Davis - August 6, 2012
It’s tempting to wonder how candidate Barack Obama would have performed in 2008 if he had campaigned on President Barack…
What Liberals Are Missing About Ted Cruz
Artur Davis - August 1, 2012
Ted Cruz’s Senate win in Texas was no upset by the time he pulled it off, and for all of the…
Post-Religious Liberals
Artur Davis - July 30, 2012
For a stretch of several years in the middle of the last decade, liberals spent a fair amount of energy…
“Political Animals” Is Telling Us Something
Artur Davis - July 26, 2012
Showtime’s new mini-series “Political Animals” insists that it is not really a knock-off on the saga that is Bill and…
An Evil Without Solution
Artur Davis - July 23, 2012
It took literally minutes for politics to get twisted into the massacre in Aurora, Colorado. ABC News’ Brian Ross (the same…
Obama, The Master of the Negative Arts
Artur Davis - July 19, 2012
Count me in the camp that is not yet wringing hands about Mitt Romney’s prospects in the fall, largely because…
Jesse’s Drama
Artur Davis - July 16, 2012
Last week, during the alternately sad, alternately voyeuristic coverage of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s troubles, I recalled a night that the…
Education Reform and Its Centrist Critics
Artur Davis - July 11, 2012
Ed Kilgore’s latest posting in The New Republic is a pretty fair representation of how allegedly centrist Democrats have maneuvered…
The Cronkite Curse
Artur Davis - July 4, 2012
Imagine if it were revealed that Scott Pelley or Diane Sawyer had met with Chris Christie last year to implore…
That Silver Lining is Dark
Artur Davis - July 2, 2012
Having argued in my previous posting that the Supreme Court’s squeaker on healthcare vindicates the left’s strategy of winning by…
The Liberal Coup
Artur Davis - June 29, 2012
Whether Chief Justice John Roberts changed his mind, or is the latest example of Republican justices “evolving” on the bench,…
The Court’s Mixed Decision on Immigration
Artur Davis - June 26, 2012
If you’re scoring the Supreme Court’s Solomonic ruling on immigration, consider this counter-intuitive result: liberals who would be expected to…
The Baseball Case Against Roger Clemens
Artur Davis - June 25, 2012
Roger Clemens without steroids is still not a deeply sympathetic character. Even before his brain and emotions might have been…
Immigration and a Missed Opportunity
Artur Davis - June 18, 2012
There was genuine suspense in Barack Obama’s announcement that he will through executive order legalize about a million young undocumented…
Reagan Would Still Win
Artur Davis - June 13, 2012
For the same reasons that I didn’t apply the gaffe label to Barack Obama’s sanguine musings about the economy, or…
Of Presidential Gaffes and Their Consequences
Artur Davis - June 11, 2012
When a gifted politician stumbles over words, it is often the case that Michael Kinsley’s venerable definition of a gaffe…
Two Visions of the Multi-Racial Future
Artur Davis - June 8, 2012
Zoltan Hajnal and Taeku Lee have written an unintentionally distressing account of what they envision American politics will look like…
One Cautious Take on Wisconsin
Artur Davis - June 6, 2012
Ross Douthat has a striking observation on the futile Wisconsin recall: rather than echo the conventional Republican theme that the…
Republicans cheer Davis’s defection to GOP
Artur Davis - June 1, 2012
Written by Rosalind S. Helderman, this article first appeared in The Washington Post on May 30, 2012. Republicans on Wednesday were…
Mia Love and the Future
Artur Davis -
The outcomes in specific US House races rarely matter outside their own borders: the fact that 63 Republicans took over…
Republicans and Community, Redux
Artur Davis - May 31, 2012
It’s worth reading EJ Dionne’s latest piece about the essence of modern conservatism, not so much for the originality of…
A Response to Political Rumors
Artur Davis - May 29, 2012
While I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this website a forum for ideas, and not a personal forum, I…
Romney’s Education Gambit
Artur Davis - May 25, 2012
Mitt Romney’s venture into education policy this week was overdue, but bold in the right places. It was a striking…
Romney’s Moment
Artur Davis - May 22, 2012
There has never been much of a reservoir of respect in Barack Obama’s White House for the Republican Party. The…
Responses and Feedback
Artur Davis - May 21, 2012
My tardiness in updating the responses and feedback section has created a backlog. Not surprisingly, my columns on gay marriage…
The Blogger and Black Studies
Artur Davis - May 15, 2012
Last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education waded headfirst into the culture wars by terminating one of its bloggers for…
Hispanic Losses, Gay Victories
Artur Davis - May 14, 2012
A decade ago, the Hispanic political community and the gay rights lobby were in a substantially similar position: both with…
The Gay Marriage Aftermath
Artur Davis - May 11, 2012
The most eloquent, poignant argument I ever heard against same-sex marriage came from an African American woman in her late…
Football Kills
Artur Davis - May 9, 2012
I have a distinct memory of a time in my childhood when boxing was at the epicenter of the national…
Elizabeth Warren: Minority Crusader?
Artur Davis - May 8, 2012
This article originally appeared in National Review on May 8, 2012. Who knew that Massachusetts provides an opportunity to add…
Americans Elect: Going, Going, Gone?
Artur Davis - May 7, 2012
Mark Schmitt has just written a solid critique in the New Republic of the failing political enterprise that is Americans…
Stars Emerge to “True the Vote”
Artur Davis - May 3, 2012
Written by Quin Hillyer, this article first appeared on www.cfif.org on May 2, 2012 A new right-leaning star was born…
The No-Longer-Practiced Politics of LBJ
Artur Davis - April 30, 2012
It is Lyndon Baines Johnson’s fate that as much as he was venerated during his career for his raw skills,…
The Troubling Choice to Try John Edwards
Artur Davis - April 25, 2012
I have a suspicion that the loathing toward John Edwards in Democratic circles is a kind of remorse toward a…
Rethinking the Immigrant Debate
Artur Davis - April 23, 2012
The political right has more than its share of sins on immigration: the embrace of overly punitive restrictions in Alabama…
ABC’s “Scandal”: The Bland and the Beautiful
Artur Davis -
Washington is a city that loves to see itself on the television screen. Unlike New York or Los Angeles, neither…
The Culture War Begins
Artur Davis - April 16, 2012
Hilary Rosen’s put-down of Ann Romney has operated in a remarkably generous manner for all sides of the dispute. For…
The Shrinking Obama Vision
Artur Davis - April 14, 2012
There is the conservative critique of Barack Obama that contends that he has grown the size and scope of government…
The Santorum Post-Mortem
Artur Davis - April 11, 2012
Some post-mortems on Rick Santorum’s partly admirable, partly vexing candidacy: First, his is a campaign that can credibly spend energy…
The “Obama Is A Moderate” Fantasy
Artur Davis - April 9, 2012
When Barack Obama is not being re-cast as a principled defender of progressive values, his defenders in the press try…
Hillary Nostalgia
Artur Davis - April 7, 2012
Hillary Clinton must know that there are at least three ways she might have been president. Had she been modest…
Seventies Night on Capitol Hill
Artur Davis - April 2, 2012
Ira Shapiro’s recent work on the late seventies, “The Last Great Senate”, has the gift of good timing. It hits…
Cynicism, Democrat-Style, on Healthcare
Artur Davis - March 31, 2012
This article also appeared in Politico on March 31, 2012. It’s hard to pinpoint the worst moment this week for…
The Mandate’s Very Bad Day
Artur Davis - March 28, 2012
At the risk of reading tea leaves from two justices, the ever pivotal Anthony Kennedy and the magisterial but cautious…
The Other Trayvon Martin Tragedy
Artur Davis - March 24, 2012
This article also appeared in Politico on March 24, 2012 There is a price to invoking race too frequently. It…
Where Have All The Moderates Gone?
Artur Davis - March 22, 2012
I’m half admiring and half-critical of “Rule and Ruin”, Geoffrey Kabaservice’s exploration of the decline of moderates as a political…
A Moderate’s Constitution
Artur Davis - March 20, 2012
Judge Harvie Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals could easily have been Justice Harvie Wilkinson of the Supreme…
Obama’s Very Quiet Year
Artur Davis - March 17, 2012
This article originally appeared in Politico on March 17, 2012. If you believe Reuters and Pew, Barack Obama is in…