Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:14:47 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Nicholas Wapshott :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Nicholas+Wapshott istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/reaganism-undone/86484/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It was as if the party had been thrown to mark the end of an era. It was last weekend, on Park Avenue, and the sort of bash middle aged adults like to throw to show they are still on top of their game, still capable of getting up on the dance floor and gyrating to recapture their lost youth. My fellow guests were mostly money people, hedge fund managers, bankers of one sort or another, investors in commercial real estate, people who until the last couple of weeks thought nothing of shelling out... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-view-from-the-clark-institute/86279/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST New Yorkers who enjoy a leafy journey north to the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires have a welcome addition to their array of attractions: the new extension of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. The Stone Hill Center is set a little distance from the core of the collection, up the hill from the art museum and nestling in trees. It is the new building's location almost as much as its unusual design, by the Japanese autodidact architect Tadao Ando, that sparks the... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/lowlier-than-thou/86031/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST What once promised to be the cleanest election in recent times is fast degenerating into spiteful class warfare. Both candidates are making out that the other is unsuited to be president because they are out of touch with ordinary voters. Both claim to be agents of "change" and champions of the underdog. Both suggest the other is disqualified by virtue of their access to privilege. The language of class warfare is couched in code. The subtext of John McCain's message is that Barack Obama is not... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-few-of-the-presidents-men-woodwards-the-war/85594/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In "The War Within" (Simon & Schuster, 487 pages, $32), the fourth volume of Bob Woodward's war quartet, he makes a number of key observations about the way President Bush has handled the Iraq surge. Mr. Woodward has discovered that, while in public, the president and his administration maintained a confident outlook about the prospect of victory evan as, behind the scenes, over time they became concerned at the lack of progress in pacifying the warring factions and the Al Qaeda-inspired forces... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/up-next-clinton-vs-palin/85535/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If you have a moment, take a look at the chart on the Real Clear Politics Web site showing the presidential race polling average. It will tell you at a glance that the last two weeks of hectic politicking have transformed the contest. Senator Obama's thin blue line, that has persistently enjoyed the upper trajectory since April, has taken a precipitous plunge, while Senator McCain's wavy red ribbon has rocketed. In poker terms, Mr. McCain has enjoyed "position" over Mr. Obama, meaning he has... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/the-bristol-factor/85010/ Tue, 2 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST John McCain is a lucky guy. Divine intervention, in the shape of Hurricane Gustav, gave him the perfect excuse to cancel a valedictory by President Bush and a chiding address by Vice President Cheney due to be delivered yesterday. With Barack Obama out to convince voters a McCain presidency would be little more than a Bush third term, the giant wind came right on cue. But Mr. McCain can also make his own luck. The Democratic love-in at Invesco Field in Denver may be a chilling reminder to... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obamas-dirty-fight/84798/ Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST There was, once, a slender chance that this would be the best mannered election in recent times. It was in both candidates' interest to mount campaigns devoid of dirty tricks and negative campaigning. John McCain suffered during the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina and discovered the hard way that in modern politics anything goes. Texas National Guardsman Bush stood silently by as surrogates besmirched the war hero. It was whispered Mr. McCain was unsuited to become president because... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/iron-lady-at-twilight-on-thatchers-legacy/84682/ Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST At the weekend what a number of us have known for a long while became public: Margaret Thatcher is suffering from dementia. Since 2000, and aggravated since by a series of small strokes, the Iron Lady has found her extraordinary mind slipping away from her. As her daughter Carol describes it in a new memoir, the first time Lady Thatcher's memory lapse became obvious, "I almost fell off my chair. Watching her struggle with her words and her memory, I couldn't believe it. She was in her 75th year... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/glimmerglass-times-four-on-an-elizabethan-stage/84297/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Glimmerglass Opera has four productions on its bill this summer, and each employs a shared backdrop: an elegant facsimile of an Elizabethan theater in pale gray timber. In front of that background, the flats and scenery for each opera float in. Operagoers who attend performances to applaud lavish sets rather than the singing and staging may be disappointed by it, but the ingenious device — which is both artistically apt and economical — successfully unifies the quartet under a single theme... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obamas-biden-factor/84256/ Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Vladimir Putin may not have set out to alter the course of the general election, but his decision to invade Georgia has made it far more likely that his nemesis, the battered bruiser John McCain, will square off against him in January. Since Russian tanks rumbled across the Georgian border, Mr. McCain has come out swinging against what he sees as the resurrection of Old Russia, the hibernating ursine giant that from time to time wakens to maul its neighbors. The former navy pilot not only leapt... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/events-dear-boy-events/83775/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST When the artful prime minister of Britain, Harold Macmillan, was asked what he considered the greatest threat a statesman might face, he replied, "Events, dear boy, events." Those running to become president might respond with the same answer, for in an election "events" can also transform the political landscape overnight. The Russian invasion of Georgia is such an event. It hardly came out of the blue, for the oil rich nation has been a thorn in Russia's side ever since it declared... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/hold-them-to-account/83286/ Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST On Friday, the Beijing Olympics will open with a ceremony that will be half Busby Berkeley, half Nuremberg rally. It will be the most overtly political Olympiad since 1936, when Hitler hijacked the event to promote his new Nazi world order. Thanks to athletes like Jesse Owens, an African American who won four gold medals, the Führer's aim to prove "scientifically" that Aryans were superior to "lesser" races came to nil. The Chinese communist leaders have made little attempt to conceal their joy... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/sarkozys-slip-from-grace/82854/ Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST A little more than a year ago, Nicholas Sarkozy became the president of France. He was welcomed as a reforming free market conservative who intended to spare no quarter in turning around a country that had long lived off its past. He seemed genuinely appalled by the truth behind the English joke that the problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur. Little wonder that any Frenchman under 40 who wants to get rich has been living in London for years. Or that Ashford, the... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/their-historic-candidate/82451/ Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST There has been a good deal of clucking about the network news anchors following Barack Obama to Iraq and Europe. The attention lavished on him is hard on John McCain, it is argued, and demonstrates conclusively the liberal bias of the broadcast press. There is another way of looking at things. Mr. McCain was lucky he was largely left alone when he walked through the Potemkin marketplace in Baghdad, specially cleared of terrorists for the occasion, or when Joe Lieberman audibly corrected him... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/looking-at-churchill-with-loving-eyes/82282/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST When Celia Sandys was born in 1943, her grandfather, Winston Churchill, was at the peak of his powers. He had been prime minister for three years. The Nazi invasion had been postponed indefinitely after the Battle of Britain, and Churchill had finally persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to join the war. The overwhelming might of the American forces and materiel being assembled in Britain in preparation for D-Day the following year meant it was only a matter of time before Hitler would be... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/mccain-a-formidable-rival/81962/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Something most unlikely is happening in the presidential election. All the odds are stacked against John McCain. By his own admission he is "as old as dirt" and has "as many scars as Frankenstein." He is not a great stump speaker, finds it awkward reading a speech from a teleprompter, and, though charming in person, he does not have great screen presence. His campaign is in shambles. Even before his economic adviser Phil Gramm started wagging his finger at Americans feeling the pinch at the gas... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/obamas-hot-air/81485/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Barack Obama's young supporters are discovering that their candidate is hardly the champion of the "new politics" he promised to be. Now that their primary and caucus votes are safely counted, and Hillary Clinton has been dispatched back to the Senate, the Democratic presidential candidate elect is racing toward the political center. Like a sinking hot air balloonist, he is madly throwing out ballast and baggage to stay aloft in what is turning out to be a far more tightly contested race than... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/billy-joel-pulls-the-curtain-at-shea/81389/ Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST There is some suitable symmetry in Billy Joel giving the final musical performance at Shea Stadium. As a budding singer-songwriter in 1964, Mr. Joel looked out at the American music scene and despaired. The charts were full of soul hits, which left him cold. "I was a kid from Levittown, so how much soul did I have at that point?" he once said of his childhood. Then one evening in February 1964, like much of the rest of America, he watched on television as Ed Sullivan ushered the Beatles into... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/mccain-as-his-own-man/81079/ Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST It is a cheap shot, but effective. Whoever came up with the riff "John McCain: Bush's Third Term" has tapped into a potent message that is deeply damaging to the Arizona senator's chances of reaching the White House. The slogan has proven so popular that MoveOn.org ran out of its "Bush's Third Term" bumper stickers long ago. Another poster has a picture of Mr. McCain's face alongside the phrase, "The same old same old." For Senator Obama, presenting himself as a young champion of change, what... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/got-to-paint-the-lewitts/80896/ Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST When Sol LeWitt died in April last year, there was no debate over where or how his life and work should be celebrated. He had already decided that a permanent showcase of his vast geometric forms and schematic color arrangements should be put on permanent display at MASS MoCA, the complex of former brick textile factory buildings that has become the Berkshires' magnet for those interested in Modern and Contemporary art. "Sol came here and chose which buildings he wanted to use to house his art... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/up-to-the-neck-in-salty-water/80201/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The pictures of President Bush and Prime Minister Brown in London this week showed two men forcing smiles for the cameras. The two have never achieved the easy rapport enjoyed by the president and Tony Blair, and Mr. Brown is all too aware that his wholehearted backing of America in the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan has taken a heavy toll on his popularity. Mr. Brown, premier for little over a year, has two years before he is obliged to seek reelection, but a poll... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/talking-to-tyrants/79758/ Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST The clearest contrast between an America led by Senator McCain and one led by Senator Obama can be found in the foreign and security goals they have set themselves for their first year in office. In Charleston, S.C., in July Mr. Obama was asked whether he would in his first year hold face-to-face meetings "without preconditions" with the tyrants running Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. He replied, "I would. And the reason is this: the notion that somehow not talking to countries... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/queen-hillary-in-check/79265/ Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST What next for Hillary Clinton? Her failure to gain enough elected delegates to win her party's nomination is a far cry from the "inevitable" candidate she seemed back in January. She now finds herself in the embarrassing position of a young tomboy who has climbed high in a tree to show she is as bold and brave as the real boys, only to have to summon the fire brigade to help her clamber down. She will finish the race, however, with her dignity largely intact. Her fighting spirit and cheerful... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/glimmerglass-opera-goes-shakespearean/78923/ Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The first Shakespeare performance that the general and artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera, Michael MacLeod, can remember being involved in was in the early 1970s, as a schoolboy at Fettes College in Edinburgh, Scotland. "I found myself head of house directing a school production of 'Julius Caesar,'" he recalled. "And there playing Marc Antony was this truculent, troublesome young man, one year younger than me, always questioning authority, but even then showing himself to be a wonderful... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/wooing-the-press/78708/ Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 EST According to Michael Tomasky in the New York Review of Books, the press has been too kind to John McCain. They have given him an easy time because he is a Republican even liberals can like, because he suffered President Bush's racial campaign smears in 2000, and because he is an amiable and humorous fellow who deliberately sets out to charm reporters. As Chris Matthews put it, "The press loves McCain. We're his base." According to David Brock and Paul Waldman of Media Matters, Senator McCain... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/jonathan-millers-operatic-mission/78700/ Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Lunch with director Jonathan Miller is in turns a testing lecture on philosophy and literature, a hilarious stand-up routine, a somber poetry lesson, a doleful diatribe against trends in opera production, and a lugubrious harangue against celebrity culture and vulgarity. Above all, it is a superb one-man show. Mr. Miller, here to finesse his production of Domenico Cimarosa's "Il Matrimonio Segreto," which opens today in a short run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theater, cannot... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/clintons-claim/76800/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Senator Clinton's resounding victory in the Kentucky primary last night left the Democratic race as unresolved as before. Senator Obama was again left unable to boast he had conclusively clinched the nomination, while Mrs. Clinton lives to fight another day. But if Kentucky confirmed that, notwithstanding his position as the frontrunner, Mr. Obama remains unable to attract support from key elements of the Democratic coalition — white blue collar workers, women, older voters — what hope does the... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/ageism-vs-racism/76413/ Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EST We live in a euphemistic age where, in the name of smoothing the rough edges of an often cruel society, it is considered poor form to mention someone's gender (if a woman), or height (if short), or hair (if bald), or skin color (if it is other than white). It is not acceptable in polite company to mention that someone is "old." Instead they must be described as "older." Once when I pointed out that middle aged people like me do not expect important announcements from an employer concerning... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/revolution-will-not-be-nominated/76242/ Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Last Tuesday evening, political reporters were so absorbed by the increasingly snippy standoff between senators Clinton and Obama that they mostly forgot that North Carolina and Indiana were also holding Republican primaries. Governors Huckabee and Romney have long since conceded victory to the senator of Arizona, making their trivial tallies on Tuesday totally otiose, but few noticed that a full 8% of Republicans hauled themselves to the polls to vote for the Libertarian maverick Ron Paul. In... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/make-mine-marlene/76007/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The results last night from North Carolina and Indiana were not the decisive double whammy that Democratic superdelegates were hoping for. Like the epic mud-splattered battles of World War I, the dawn has disclosed little change to the war torn landscape and little advance on either side. It seems that Barack Obama has survived the suicide mission of his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. And Hillary Clinton's reinvention as Roseanne Barr, the no nonsense working woman next door, has... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/political-limits-of-idealism/75595/ Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Some presidential bids hit the rocks when the married candidate is photographed with a smiling model on his knee. Some when they take an expensive haircut. Others are struck down by an assassin's bullet. Senator Obama's dream of entering the White House has turned into a nightmare since the latest unplugged salvo from his wayward guru, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. The Reverend Wright stuff appears to vindicate Senator Clinton's decision to press on regardless of her rival's lead in delegates... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/running-on-empty-2008-04-23/75146/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST In the end, the Democratic race has come down to money. Senator Obama is flush with cash. Having raised $40 million last month, he spent like a Wall Street trader on his stag night in the last seven weeks in Pennsylvania, an enormous $11 million, and he still boasts a war chest of $41 million. Senator Clinton's campaign says she has $9 million left, having spent $5 million in Pennsylvania. It may well be far less than that. Mrs. Clinton failed to win Pennsylvania by the large double digit lead... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/national/pope-benedict-xvi-greets-america/74752/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Benedict XVI's arrival in Washington last night heralds a series of events intended to show solidarity with President Bush at a time of anxiety about Islamic fundamentalism, which threatens both America and the Catholic Church, and the president's pursuit of the war on terror. On Sunday, in a display of defiance against Islamic extremism, the pope, who turns 81 today, will commemorate the lives of those who died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, by kneeling on the bedrock of... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/miracle-in-philadelphia/74777/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Until last weekend, many Democrats and most left leaning pundits were gleefully portraying Hillary Clinton as the Robert Mugabe of Westchester. Behind in the tally of states, the popular vote, and the number of delegates needed to win, she was seen, like the tyrant of Harare, as roundly beaten but stubbornly refusing to concede defeat. Then came news of Barack Obama's private assessment, delivered behind closed doors to a meeting of supporters in San Francisco, that small town Pennsylvania... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/good-night-diana/74410/ Wed, 9 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST The verdict this week at the inquest in London of Diana, princess of Wales, should bring to an end the painful and protracted royal saga that has tested the patience of the British public and threatened the very foundation of Britain's constitutional monarchy. Ten years, two inquests, two police investigations, and at least $40 million in taxpayers' money since Diana's death, nine of the 11 jurors confirmed what most of us concluded on the morning she died: that she was "unlawfully killed" by... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/beyond-hillary-hillary/74043/ Wed, 2 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST The drumbeat urging Senator Clinton to concede defeat is growing. Mrs. Clinton is damaging the Democratic Party. She is making Senator Obama's eventual task of winning the general election more difficult, while granting Senator McCain time to cozy up to the voters. She is putting herself, and her ambition, and the ambition of her husband ahead of the common good. She cannot win, so why is she still in the race? This chorus of disapproval is speaking up at a strange time. There are still three... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/clintons-last-twist/73661/ Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the many surprises of the Democratic race is how sharply sentiment has turned against Senator Clinton. No sooner had Iowa backed Senator Obama than even some of her previously loyal supporters began to express relief. So long as Mrs. Clinton was thought to be "inevitable," there was little point in expressing doubts about her qualities. A general Democratic view was, "I don't much like her, but of course I will end up voting for her." Senator Obama's insurgency made such fair weather... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/but-is-philadelphia/73240/ Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST The Democratic Party has saddled itself with a strange and convoluted way of picking a presidential candidate. Ostensibly intended to provide a fair way for its members to sift through the field and reflect the many denominations of the broad church the party represents, it has arrived at a system which is not so much democracy at work as democracy ad absurdum. In the past the contradictions of the voting arrangements were of little importance because the selection process quickly produced a... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/tragedy-of-hypocrisy/72775/ Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST So, farewell Governor Spitzer. As a Democratic rising star, he might even have become President Spitzer one day. He has paid a high price for his indiscretion, but he knew the rules of the game when he first stood for public office and he has no one else to blame but himself. Politics is a blood sport, played for keeps. As Margaret Thatcher said on the day her ungrateful Conservative colleagues evicted her from Downing Street, "It's a funny old world." How swiftly even distinguished public... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/prosecuting-himself/72696/ Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST A number of New York crooks and their lawyers could be forgiven for indulging in a little schadenfreude last night at Governor Spitzer's oblique confession to having consorted with a prostitute. After picking up glittering prizes at Princeton and Harvard, the governor set out on a brilliant legal career in which he liked to pose as a combination of Mob buster Eliot Ness and class warrior Robin Hood. Time magazine even named him "Crusader of the Year." From the start, Mr. Spitzer seemed to be as... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/bringing-the-tam-tam-to-st-thomas-church/72467/ Thu, 6 Mar 2008 18:04:10 EST When the manuscript of Sir John Tavener's "Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary" reached John Scott, the musical director of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue, he began to research the instruments right away. Mr. Tavener, Britain's most celebrated living composer and an Orthodox Christian, routinely relies on instruments from way beyond the occidental repertory. Included in his new score are items that even the largest orchestra cannot muster: the giant Tam-Tam, Tibetan temple... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-unable-to-close-deal/72304/ Wed, 5 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST Senator Clinton has lived to fight another day. She did not halt Senator Obama's momentum entirely, but the voting last night showed that the rush to install him as the party's candidate in November has slowed. In the two weeks since Wisconsin voted for her rival, Mrs. Clinton has sharpened her attacks against him and prompted the press to scrutinize him more closely. Her campaign did not collapse when she was shunted into second place; in February she raised an enormous $35 million. Mr. Obama... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/unfaithfully-yours-rex/72241/ Tue, 4 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST In a trade dominated by egotists, the actor Rex Harrison, whose centenary will be celebrated by the Museum of Modern Art beginning tomorrow in a month-long series of his films, was among the most self-obsessed. I met him while conducting research for a biography of Carol Reed, the British director of such cinema masterpieces as "The Third Man." Harrison (1908–90) offered a unique dimension to understanding the elusive Reed. He had worked with Reed both in the 1930s, before the young director... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/thatcher-on-mccain/71934/ Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Margaret Thatcher is too canny a politician to embroil herself in the American election. She has been happy to entertain those like Rudolph Giuliani who, in the absence of Ronald Reagan, have traveled to London to establish a personal link with conservatism's golden age, but she has kept her own counsel about who she prefers in the Republican race. Although she has not reached out to John McCain, all evidence suggests that she would not spend much time questioning his conservative credentials... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/abuse-on-the-high-seas/71723/ Fri, 22 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Of all the many grisly killers who have made fine operatic heroes, few are as difficult to explain and as hard to like as Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. His anguished soul will be revived in a new Metropolitan Opera production by the British director John Doyle on February 28. The brooding fisherman Grimes is no mere cold-blooded killer, nor a gleeful assassin. He is a serial physical abuser of adolescent boys who, in the opera's opening scene, is the focus of a public inquiry into the death... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/her-key-two-weeks/71568/ Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Last night's Democratic primary has settled little. Mr. Obama won outright, but because the party apportions delegates according to the percentage of support, the state offered him a relatively small advantage over Senator Clinton. But while Mr. Obama remains the frontrunner and favorite eventually to win his party's nomination, Mrs. Clinton can comfort herself that she did not suffer an outright rout. Mr. Obama may have won nine states in a row, but the killer blow still eludes him and it... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/new-underdog/71192/ Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Last night Hillary Clinton became the official underdog in the Democratic race. Results from the three-state Potomac Primary showed Barack Obama, armed with momentum coming out of last weekend's contests, driving Senator Clinton, clearly waning in support, into second place in the elected delegate count. Even Virginia, in which she held out a slim hope of victory, gave Senator Obama a resounding win. Strangely, achieving back marker status may be the best news to have emerged for Mrs. Clinton... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/clintons-steel/70839/ Wed, 6 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST By this morning, according to the old primary rules, we should have known for certain who the parties' general election candidates would be. But this is a presidential race played by new rules with few of the traditional certainties. If the race is not quite over, it is, at least, almost settled on the Republican side. Mitt Romney's failure to halt the revival in fortunes that John McCain has enjoyed since the military surge began to have its effect in Iraq should ensure that it is now only a... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/true-story-of-the-true-glory/70732/ Tue, 5 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST "The True Glory," the World War II documentary of 1945 to be screened in a new print this Friday as part of the Museum of Modern Art's "Oscar's Docs" series, is the most expensive documentary ever made. Commissioned by General Eisenhower to record the progress of "Operation Overlord," the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944 by Allied troops, the film took an enormous toll on all who worked on it. Of the 1,400 cameramen involved, 32 were killed in action, 16 were reported missing, and more... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/opinion/after-giuliani/70410/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST As Mayor Giuliani's audacious dream of bouncing out of a strong Florida primary victory into Super Tuesday faded away and as his ambition to translate America's Mayor into America's President fast crumbled, he ventured a prediction which quickly gained currency: whoever wins Florida for the Republicans wins the nomination. That prognosis assumed that Florida would offer a clear winner, but, as has become a somewhat unsettling habit since the general election of 2000, the Sunshine State split...