Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

Some years ago, I was looking into Stephen Harper, who was then the prime minister of Canada. David Frum said to me something like this: “You’ll want to talk to Jason Kenney. He’s a conservative intellectual who does politics.” That was a very good suggestion.

Well, Mr. Kenney is my latest guest on Q&A. For almost 20 years, he served in his country’s House of Commons. Have I said—have I been clear—that Kenney is a Canadian? Well, he...

I’ll quote from my introduction:

… our guest today is Michael Feinberg, a former FBI agent who is now a writer and editor with Lawfare. With the FBI, he won a slew of awards and commendations, but was forced out last year when the regime of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino came in. He wrote about all this in a moving article called “Goodbye to All That.” Mr. Feinberg, of course, borrowed his title from Robert Graves.

He grew up in the Chic...

Last Friday, there was a day-long event at Princeton: the Aaron Friedberg Retirement Colloquium. Participants included a range of the professor’s colleagues and students (present and past). Friedberg has had a full, busy career.

He is a professor of politics and international affairs. Among his books is A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia. As I say in my introduction, he has had a stint or t...

This is an important moment in Iran: people are out in the streets, demanding change; the dictatorship is murdering them by the thousands. I definitely wanted to talk with Marina Nemat, a woman I have known and admired for many years.

She is a dissident from Iran. Since 1991, she has lived in Canada. You will see, in our podcast, that she is in a picture-perfect Canadian setting—like from a movie. But her thoughts are with Iran.

Mari...

I have known Linda Chavez for many years, and have read her for even longer. Do you know I had a hard time introducing her? I really did. This is what I wound up saying:

... our guest is Linda Chavez—whose life has been so multifaceted, it takes a while to sum up.

She has held several governmental positions. She ran for the U.S. Senate. She is the founder and chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She is the vice-chairman of t...

When it comes to questions of U.S. foreign policy—when it comes to questions of world affairs in general—there are certain people I always want to hear from. One of them is Nick Burns—R. Nicholas Burns—the veteran U.S. diplomat.

Let me quote from my introduction to this new Q&A:

He is what you might call a “generalist.” He has served in many capacities and many places. He has studied, and worked on, a wide range of issues.

When he was...

Gambling on sports is as old as sports, no doubt. Cavemen must have gambled, somehow, when it came to tossing sticks or what have you. Jumping to the 20th century, we in America had the Black Sox scandal of 1919.

In recent times, however, sports gambling seems to have swept the nation. It is ubiquitous—and as easy as flicking a finger on your phone. FanDuel and other such companies are raking it in. And gambling takes a terrible tol...

In my introduction to this Q&A, I say,

... our guest today is David Frum, the writer. What does he write? Books and articles, about history, politics, culture, and so on. He is almost the definition of a generalist.

He works for The Atlantic and hosts The David Frum Show. He can be found at DavidFrum.com.

Also, he and I are old colleagues and friends. And yet, I learned something, during our latest Q&A. He went to the National Music C...

For many years, a favorite guest of Q&A has been Daniel Hannan, the British writer and politician—since 2021 a member of the House of Lords. In this new Q&A, Dan is sitting in the Royal Gallery, in Parliament. (I am sitting at home.)

Bill Buckley taped some episodes of Firing Line in the Sistine Chapel. I can’t see myself podcasting from that room; but I enjoyed looking at Dan in the Royal Gallery, via Zoom.

My conversation with Hann...

In my introduction to this Q&A, I say,

... our guest today is a college student—a senior at Stanford—and a journalist already, believe it or not. We have known each other for some time. He is John R. Puri—more formally, John Raj Puri.

Isn’t that a great moniker?

John comes from Des Moines, where he has seen the Iowa caucuses up close. Early on, he was drawn to politics and public affairs. When he was in elementary school, he learned t...

Jeff Jacoby is now part of the furniture—part of the furniture of American journalism, certainly of opinion journalism. Since 1994, he has written a column for the Boston Globe. That is extraordinary longevity in the media. You can also find him at (where else?) jeffjacoby.com.

Though Jeff is a fixture in Boston, he comes from Cleveland. He regards himself as an Ohioan in Boston (as I regard myself as a Michigander in New York).

Jeff...

This new Q&A has two guests. With me gabbing too, it is a three-way convo. My guests are Bill Kristol and David French, those sharp and experienced political writers, and two of the people I most value.

You are, by now, familiar with “the Politico story”—the report from Politico about Young Republican leaders and what they say in their private (formerly private) chats.

This is dark, obnoxious stuff—to call it illiberal would be kind.

...

Kristina Hammer is the president of the Salzburg Festival—which in Salzburg, and Austria, and Europe, and the music world, is a very big deal. She grew up in Germany—the Black Forest—and studied in Mainz and Vienna. As a business executive, she worked in the department-store field for a while. And in cars: Aston Martins, Jaguars, Mercedes-Benzes, and other fine autos.

Get this: She had a role in bringing the Aston Martin back into t...

Julian Prégardien is a tenor from Germany—despite his French-looking name. On his father’s side, he is Belgian, Italian, and Dutch. “A true European,” he says, a real mixture. One of his ancestors is Sweelinck, an important composer in pre-Bach days.

I talked with Prégardien at the Salzburg Festival, while conducting interviews for the Salzburg Festival Society. He was singing Mozart at the festival. And in this sit-down, I open wit...

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen is an American countertenor—a singer from Brooklyn, N.Y. How do you pronounce that first name? As he explained to me, think of three letters: R-E-A. “Ar-ee-é” (with the stress on the first syllable.) And his last name is not “Cohen” but “Nussbaum Cohen.” Delightful guy. Excellent conversationalist. I have sat down with him at the Salzburg Festival.

I begin by asking—for all our sakes—“What’s a countertenor?” I w...

Rainer Honeck occupies an interesting, and important, perch: he is a concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic. I have sat down with him at the Salzburg Festival, in a series of conversations hosted by the Salzburg Festival Society. It was a privilege to talk with Mr. Honeck. He rarely gives interviews. He lets his violin do the talking. He also claims he is not very good in English—but he can certainly express himself, as you will ...

Fleur Barron is a very interesting singer, and an exceptionally versatile one. This summer, she is making her debut at the Salzburg Festival, where I sat down and talked with her. She is singing Mahler—a composer she has been singing a lot lately.

Where is she from? Well, her bio tells us this: “Born in Northern Ireland to a Singaporean mother and British father, Ms. Barron grew up in Hong Kong and later New York.” Her father was Br...

Gilberto Morbach is one of the most impressive young intellectuals I know. He is a scholar of legal philosophy and related fields. He is interested in, and devoted to, the rule of law, above all. He is a Brazilian, and I have consulted him in the past about the politics—the turbulent and complicated politics—of his country.

At the outset of our podcast, I ask him about his intellectual formation. He is an admirer of John Locke and A...