Articles by Tim Rutten Page 2

IT IS impossible to imagine any country but France that could produce Bernard-Henri Levy. Read more

Thursday’s vice presidential debate and the legislative stutter that forced the House of Representatives into a needless – and incalculably expensive – second vote Friday on the financial rescue plan have something in common: Both were influenced in important ways by a Main Street versus Wall Street dichotomy that no longer is relevant to America’s economic life. Read more

We Americans are accustomed to regarding political rhetoric much as Dr. Read more

THE LITERATURE of human conflict divides itself into two schools: One – the more ancient – is bardic and celebrates war and warriors; the other is the tradition of witness, which elucidates war and records the fates of those caught up in it. Read more

Every act of civil disobedience is, by its very nature, a provocation. Read more

IF YOU decide to reorganize your library, it probably won’t take much of a shelf to accommodate all your vice presidential biographies. Read more

If you practice journalism long enough, you begin to develop a mental list of characters you hope never again to type in a particular sequence. Read more

Metrolink, Southern California’s beleaguered commuter rail service, likes to bill itself as one of America’s fastest-growing public transit agencies. Read more

If you want to gauge just how integral Sarah Palin has become to John McCain’s hopes of winning the presidency, consider this: On Tuesday, when the Republican nominee went before the cameras to address what, at that moment, looked like financial Armageddon, he repeatedly referred to how much better off people would be under “a McCain-Palin administration.” Read more