"The Doctrine that Never Died," 1/30/05

It's a typographical "illustration" today, by the Op-Ed page's frequent provider of same, graphic designer Alexander Isley. Sometimes this approach produces busy, anonymous-looking collages of type, but Isley's piece today is deft. Meshing the lines of the Monroe Doctrine with those of Bush's inaugural speech, a bookish serif typeface with the sans-serif all-caps of a speaker's printed text, he creates one focal point at the word "liberty", common to both documents. Unfortunately for Op-Ed contributor Tom Wolfe, that elegant confluence of type belies the weakness of his argument that Bush's speech constitutes a fourth corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.