Upon the death of Nelson Mandela, National Review noted that he had unmatched moral authority among world leaders, a view with which I agree, and I think one would be hard pressed to name a 20th century leader more revered in his time.  In watching and listening to the coverage of his life in the […]

Lady Margaret Thatcher is my favorite public figure of all time, ahead of Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan.  Her motto was that “I am not a politician of consensus, I am one of conviction”, and it is this moral clarity which most appealed to me and that distinguished  her  from the garden variety politician of […]

If you had to select a point in time or an event that was the tipping point in the trend toward incivility and almost terminal dysfunction in our nation’s capital, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987 would be a good candidate.  It was so […]

I have no doubt that Meryl Streep will win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lady Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady”.  From all I have read, including several reviews, it is a remarkable performance.  However, I probably won’t see it because all indications are that it is not enough concerned with her public […]

The world lost a true hero in December with the passing of Vaclav Havel, the first post-communist president of Czechoslovakia, whose efforts on behalf of human freedom are legendary, richly deserving of the Nobel Prize, for either Peace or Literature or both.  How ironic that his death coincided with that of his complete opposite, Kim […]

A number of years ago I had the privilege of introducing Irving Kristol at a conference and spending some time with him discussing the issues of the day.  He was one of my favorite essayists and intellectuals and I was a subscriber to his The Public Interest magazine until it ceased publication several years ago.  […]

I want to be as fair as possible in remarks on the death of Edward M. Kennedy, just as all of us will want our survivors to consider the “whole package” and defer ultimate judgment to God.  I never met him, but he was generally considered to have the most effective and most competent staff […]

The recent death of Robert McNamara brought back many memories, mostly of frustration for those of my age who strained to make sense out of the Vietnam War.  In many ways he embodied the essential liberal premise–that smart people from the best schools, armed with efficient systems, can apply rationality to deal with organic human […]

A brief and belated tribute to Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, who died last January and who whose legacy in the journal First Things, which he founded, published, and edited, is one regular publication which I do not miss.  Thankfully it is being carried on in similar style by his successors.  Of course, his breakthrough to […]

Brit Hume referred to Jack Kemp as the “original compassionate conservative” and, as much as I have always resented that term as unnecessarily redundant and wish that George W. Bush had never coined it, upon reflection,  it is probably an appropriate characterization.  For Kemp, more than anyone else in public life, championed conservative economic policies […]