George Weigel wrote a great essay in the January 2008 issue of First Things in remembrance of long-serving Congressman Henry Hyde who died last November, and among the quotes from Hyde included was one worth repeating. It is from a speech he gave over 20 years ago to a luncheon for newly elected members of Congress, as follows. […]
Archives for 2008
Free Trade Conundrum
“Trade is a real test of leadership since its benefits are often less obvious than its downsides.”–David Ranson, H. C. Wainwright Economics, Inc. in the Wall Street Journal, 2-6-08. How true, and how difficult for the Republican Party, which, at least at the Presidential level, has been the leading free trade party for many decades, while the […]
A Watershed Moment for the Conservative Movement
John McCain’s almost miraculous comeback from near death as a viable candidate to the point of being the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee has put the American conservative movement in its most difficult spot since the rise of the right propelled Barry Goldwater to the GOP nomination in 1964. How the movement responds to this challenge […]
Been There, Done That
Recently, as the mainstream media pounded away in its coverage of the subprime mortgage “crisis” and the political class scrambled to “do something”, I looked back to the most recent replay of such moments, the 9/11 and Enron scandal induced, pre-tax cut recession of 2001. At that point, just as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan rendered his […]
Recent Books
The holiday season provided some time to finish a couple of books I had been putting off, and I can recommend both very highly: Our First Revolution, by Michael Barone. This is great narrative history covering the period leading to the English Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, complete with a detailed description of the events and […]
Baseball Has Now Lost Me
The Mitchell Report might have been the last straw. I long ago abandoned professional football–haven’t watched a game live or on TV since the Houston Oilers fired Bum Phillips and traded Earl Campbell–and professional basketball put me to sleep long before that, in both cases more for the on and off field culture they helped […]
The Long Campaign: Are We Having Fun Yet?
I know I share the sentiments of many in the vapidity of the “audition” now in its thirteenth month that will ultimately decide who will succeed George W. Bush. Newt Gingrich had the right idea last year with his in depth sessions with Mario Cuomo to illustrate how a meaningful dialogue could produce real value […]