Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Maddy Kearns sits down with America’s most famous bishop—after the Pope, of course. Suzy Weiss on poisoned salads. Coleman Hughes on how to fix sports betting before it’s too late. And more!
But first: “Usha and the baby are happy and healthy.”
So announced the vice president on Sunday, upon the birth of his fourth child. The news was followed up yesterday by a few pictures, posted by his wife, captioned: “Enjoy these attempts at taking a decent family photo with four kids!” In them, Usha Vance is smiling widely, arms wrapped around two of her kids, while her husband holds the baby.
And yet: There are those who insist that Usha Vance can’t possibly be happy. For two years, progressives have claimed she is a hostage in her own marriage—that her smiles are cries for help and her every expression of affection is performance.
Meanwhile, the New York Times bestseller list continues to prominently feature Yesteryear—a novel about an outwardly happy but secretly miserable conservative wife, which Kat Rosenfield memorably described in these pages as “parasocial hate porn for millennial feminists.” As Freya India asks in her piece today: Why are some liberals so desperate to believe women who make traditional choices must be trapped by them?
Having read the vice president’s memoir, Freya has a radical theory: that J.D. Vance both adores his wife and respects her. “The Usha described in the book,” she writes, is not “some sort of doormat or background figure in her husband’s life.”
She also has a radical suggestion: Could the Vances help remind young Americans that a happy marriage isn’t a cage?
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Two Drinks with. . . America’s Most Media-Savvy Bishop |
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Bishop Robert Barron, founder of the Word on Fire media empire and one of the most influential Catholic voices in America, is fine with annoying every end of the political spectrum. For interviewing people who defy Catholic teachings, he’s been called “NOT CHRIST-LIKE” by traditionalists. For advising the Trump administration on religious liberty, he’s been called a right-wing stooge. Over whiskey at a steakhouse in D.C., he told Madeleine Kearns all about his work at the White House, his impressions of the new Pope, the dangers of “dumbed-down” Catholicism—and why he wishes more people would go to confession. | |
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Coleman Hughes: The Case Against Sports Betting |
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Barely a week goes by without a sports-betting scandal. (The latest involves an Arizona Cardinals executive, suspended by the NFL for allegedly betting on his team’s games.) In his essay today, Coleman Hughes argues that if we’re going to prevent the $167 billion industry from completely corroding the integrity of athletics, we need to do something—and fast. To find out what he’s suggesting, read on. | |
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The Return of the God That Failed |
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How can an intelligent person be seduced by communism? And what finally breaks the spell? In this week’s Things Worth Remembering, Gary Saul Morson recommends a largely forgotten 1949 classic, “The God That Failed,” a collection of essays in which six prominent intellectuals who once believed in communism described their disillusionment with it. The parallels to today, he argues, are impossible to ignore.
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You could roll your eyes at the hypocrisy of the culture war raging about The Odyssey. (Why get het up about a black Helen if you’re going to accept a face-lifted Anne Hathaway?) But Suzy Weiss is loving it. “Suddenly, my feed is full of debates over the difference between kleos, the Greek concept of glory, and timé, which is honor,” she writes in her latest newsletter—arguing that this is a vast improvement from the movies that usually rule the summer months. “Do you remember the awe and anguish you experienced during Deadpool & Wolverine? Me neither.”
