There’s a moment in every uncertain time when loyalty stops sounding like a virtue and starts sounding like a test. Not the healthy kind of loyalty: steadfastness to community, shared purpose, and a set of obligations we freely accept. I mean the kind that demands a simple answer to a complicated question: Are you with us, or against us? The...

I had just learned of the passing of a good friend and colleague, Colman McCarthy when the memories began to return. Before I ever met him, he had already lived a life that quietly defied the usual measures of success. For nearly three decades, from 1969 to 1997, he wrote columns for The Washington Post, covering politics, religion, health, sports,...

Over the past several months, I’ve written commentaries revisiting moments in our history when individuals confronted serious challenges and rose to meet them — to remind us who we are and what we stand for. After writing about the tragedy in Minneapolis, I briefly turned to Steve Allen, an entertainer known for his intelligent wit — not to diminish what...

I first read Clarence Darrow for an American Jurisprudence class in college and have returned to his work several times since. He is widely regarded as one of the most intellectually and morally impressive attorneys in American legal history. And he spent his career standing beside people most of the country didn’t want to see. Darrow, the legendary Chicago defense...