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Charles Lipson

Peter B. Ritzma Professor Emeritus

University of Chicago

Frequent contributor: 
Real Clear Politics
Spectator | World
The Telegraph
Wall Street Journal

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The Spectator World •

CBS: from the Tiffany Network to the cheap discount bin

CBS was once called the “Tiffany Network,” and its news division was the jewel. This is the story of that division’s decline and fall, driven by partisan goals and leftist ideology. Like so many peers in the legacy media, CBS has discarded any pretense of journalistic neutrality while pretending it has not. Four recent examples clearly show a pattern of ideologically-driven network policy at CBS.
The Spectator World •

Can Kamala Harris escape the ‘Hubert Humphrey problem?’

When the sitting president is not running for reelection, the party typically turns to his vice president as the “natural” nominee. That’s a modern development (since the 1950s), caused by the VP’s larger, more visible role in the vastly larger federal government. What helps or hurts in the VP in the General Election are the tight links to the incumbent administration. What’s so striking about Kamala Harris’ candidacy is her strategy of running as an outsider to her own administration. She can only do that a lot of help from the legacy media that wants her to win.
The Spectator World •

The Vance-Walz face-off was what debate should look like

The most important takeaway from the debate between Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz is that this is what a serious debate for high office should look like. It was calm but impassioned, thoughtful, and truly helpful to any voter who wants to understand the policy differences between the two tickets. The candidates actually listened to each other, acknowledged some agreements and identified genuine areas of difference. Equally important, each managed to put forward a coherent case for his o...
The Spectator World •

Iran attacks Israel: what does it mean and what happens next?

Iran’s missile barrage was frightening, but Israel’s success shooting down the missiles not only saved lives, it gives Israel flexibility in choosing its response. It does not require a full-scale counter-attack. Iran’s attack was constrained, not an obvious prelude to full-scale war unless Tehran follows up with yet more missiles. Israel has the flexibility to concentrate on Hezbollah and turn later to Iran and deal with the nuclear-weapons program there.
The Spectator World •

Israel’s campaign to kill Nasrallah, Hezbollah and Hamas

The killing of Hassan Nazrallah is the latest — and most impressive — stage in Israel’s campaign to wipe out Iran’s terrorist proxies on its doorstep. From the Egyptian border to Beirut, the campaign is the most dazzling demonstration of real-time intelligence, high technology and precise military action in the modern era. It will be recounted on screen and studied by military experts for decades to come. James Bond’s gadgets had nothing on the booby-trapped pagers. As the meme put it, “From the...
The Spectator World •

A glitchy X/Twitter conversation between Donald Trump and Elon Musk

The lengthy interview began forty minutes late, a technical glitch the mainstream media celebrated with unrestrained joy. They hate, hate, hate Elon Musk (despite his electric vehicles) — and they hate a media rival. They hate his transformation of Twitter, now X, into an open forum with very little censorship. They much…The great Dr. Johnson was once asked what he thought about John Milton’s famous work, Paradise Lost. His reply, “None would have wished it longer.” Were Johnson alive today, he...
The Spectator World •

Kamala Harris and that new car smell

The switcheroo raises three fundamental questions for the election. First: how long will Harris’s novelty last? Answer: until Labor Day, but probably not longer. Second: how does Harris deal with the Biden administration’s policy failures? Answer: by emphasizing a hopeful future with few details and avoiding talking about her role in the administration’s mistakes. Third: how does Harris deal with her…If you felt the ground shaking, it was Democrats jumping for joy after dumping Joe Biden and set...
The Spectator World •

Joe Biden delivers his own eulogy

Joe Biden delivered a eulogy for his presidency and his political career from the Oval Office Wednesday evening. It was a sad, sluggish ending to a life in politics. It offered a strong endorsement of VP Kamala Harris and called Donald Trump a “threat to democracy” without actually using his name. But it didn’t answer two pressing questions: (1) Why did he really withdraw from a race he insisted he would stay in, and (2) Is he still fit to serve the remaining months of his term.
The Spectator World •

Biden won’t seek second term

President Biden’s announcement that he will not seek a second term — and his endorsement of Kamala Harris — came after weeks of increasing pressure from Democratic Party insiders, alarmed that voters had finally discovered what they had known for months. Joe Biden is a shell of the man he once was. Voters knew it — and they wouldn’t vote for him. Voters also knew they had been lied to by the White House, Biden’s political allies and the mainstream media, not once or twice but for years. Whatever...
The Spectator World •

The Democrats caught between the dog and the hydrant

The first dog, obviously, is the president’s physical and mental condition and his status as the presumptive nominee who won near-unanimous support in the primaries and secured enough votes to win the nomination on the first ballot. Those victories leave Biden alone in charge of staying in the race. Others can pressure him, offer him carrots and sticks, but Biden and his family control the decision. The Democrats are not just caught between one dog and one hydrant. They are caught between three...
The Spectator World •

Joe Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos could have been worse

Joe Biden didn’t make any major mistakes in his Friday interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. That’s the best you can say. He helped himself only because, after a dreadful week, he didn’t hurt himself. He made clear he is staying in the race, but he didn’t relieve the pressure building among Democrats to remove him. The problem, as every sentient being knows, is that Kamala is not a good replacement but can’t be removed without a train wreck in the party’s coalition.
The Spectator World •

Slowly, then suddenly: the sad story of Joe Biden’s decline

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
Those were Hemingway’s words in 1926’s The Sun Also Rises. A century later, they apply to Joe Biden, not financially but politically. For him, the sun is not rising. It’s setting.

“Gradually and then suddenly” is the story of Joe Biden’s physical and cognitive decline. “Gradually and then suddenly” is how his army of enablers in the media, the Democratic Party and the donor base abandoned his defense
The Spectator World •

If Joe stays in...

After Thursday’s fiasco in Atlanta, Joe Biden faces two hard choices. The hardest — and grimmest — is whether to stay in the race. Staying in means ignoring the rising chorus of calls to withdraw, not from the opposing party but from flaks on his own side, led by the New York Times. The only groups that haven’t issued that call, so far, are his party’s leadership on Capitol Hill and the two former Democratic presidents. They see the same problems everyone else does, but they probably think it is
The Spectator World •

After the debate, the deluge

Following Biden’s horrific debate performance, the Democrats have an enormous problem, best captured in the name of a recent TV series: Schitt’s Creek. Paddles for sale! Democrats should max out their credit cards buying them.

Every sentient Democrat should be in full-scale panic. It’s not that Trump’s debate performance was all that great. It wasn’t. Everything people think about him, for better or worse, was on full display.

The problem, obviously, was Biden’s performance. It’s less that Tru
The Spectator World •

The presidential debate: what you see is what you get

These weren’t the Lincoln-Douglas debates. They weren’t Kennedy-Nixon. If those were graded “A,” then this was “C-minus,” at best. The low point was who is the better golfer? I’ll go with Lincoln.

Both candidates filled the air with hyperbole. Trump led the way, as usual, calling everything he did “the best ever,” and everything Biden did “the worst.” He doesn’t favor shades of gray.

Biden responded in kind. He was right to emphasize Trump’s hours of silence during the January 6 attack on the
Real Clear Politics •

No Tax on Tips

Donald Trump is a master showman and marketer. He demonstrated those skills once again with his proposal to kill the tax on tips. It’s more than shrewd. It’s brilliant.

After the hoorays from waiters and other service workers died down, political analysts weighed in. Their conclusion: this is a very smart way to gain an edge in Nevada, where the presidential race is close. That’s certainly true. But Trump’s proposal is much smarter and will have a bigger impact, not because of its impact on tip
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