Rich Lowry

Few expected Donald Trump would be in a dominant position days before the Iowa caucuses. Fewer still expected the Republican establishment would be among the mogul’s deluded enablers. As if to validate every insult ever hurled at it, the GOP elite is putting on a display of fecklessness...

At the moment, the Republican establishment is relevant to the presidential-nomination battle only as an epithet. Less than two weeks from the Iowa caucus, the fight for the Republican nomination isn’t so much a vicious brawl between the grass roots and the establishment as it is...

The Obama administration was right when it insisted that the capture and release of 10 American sailors by Iran showed the benefits of a cooperative relationship with Tehran. The crux of the arrangement is simple: The Iranians agree to humiliate us (and pursue their long war against...

The lazy conventional wisdom is that Ted Cruz is the new Barry Goldwater, doomed to suffer an electoral landslide defeat should he win the Republican nomination. Not only is this wrong about Cruz’s general election chances, it may compare Cruz to the wrong 20th-Century Republican...

If there’s any lesson from last Tuesday’s debate, it’s that six months after his entry into the Republican presidential race, no one has any better idea of how to handle Donald Trump than when he first got in. Las Vegas highlighted how Trump has established alpha-dog dominance...

To believe his critics, Donald Trump has ripped up the U.S. Constitution and sprinkled its shreds on the smoldering embers of what was once the Statute of Liberty. He did this, of course, by proposing a temporary ban on Muslim immigration into the United States, which might be the...

A funny thing is happening on the way to the GOP meltdown. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, the two most popular and broadly acceptable candidates in the field are perhaps the most talented and most reliably conservative. Oh, and by the way, they are Hispanics in their 40s....

The Paris attacks have occasioned a wide-ranging debate about what they mean and how to respond, involving Islam and its role, military strategy and, oddly enough, how Muslims in New Jersey reacted to Sept. 11 (thanks, Donald Trump). It’s all very interesting and, for the most part,...

President Barack Obama has seen the enemy, and it is the refusal to accept more Syrian refugees. From the tone of his post-Paris remarks, you’d think that a sophisticated terrorist assault on a major Western city is a setback; sentiment in the U.S. against taking more Syrian refugees...

Marco Rubio has a dubious distinction among the top-tier Republican presidential candidates: He’s the only one who crafted and passed through the Senate a so-called comprehensive immigration reform that is anathema to the right. As Rubio has demonstrated considerable political...

If we had been told at the beginning of the year that in October a Republican presidential candidate would be leading the polls nationally and in almost every state, drawing support from across all factions of the GOP and sucking up all the oxygen in the race, most people would have...

Carly Fiorina is a no-nonsense former business executive who is showing she can play — and throw elbows — with the big boys in the Republican presidential nomination battle. Feminists have noticed, but their admiration is tinged with dread — and it should be. An eloquent, fearless...

Pope Francis has enjoyed a high-spirited welcome in the United States. The infectiously likable pope kissed babies along his parade route in Washington, D.C., and performed a soaringly beautiful mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine there. He is an endearingly charismatic figure,...

CNN gathered together all of the Republican presidential candidates at the Reagan Library for a highly touted debate and could hardly think to ask them about anything except Donald Trump. By one count, 44 percent of the questions touched on Trump. Why even pretend it’s going to...

In an ABC News interview, Hillary Clinton apologized for using a private email while secretary of state, a notable departure after months of not letting the slightest crack show in her steadfast public defense of her arrangement. The interview was progress. But she has a lot to apologize...