“Truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit………..truth is seldom pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter.”–Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard University, June 1978. The death this week of Alexander Solzhenitsyn eliminates one more among the few really significant personalities who, along with Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Lech Walesa, converged […]
Russert: A First Class Professional
Tim Russert was unique player in the media profession. Given his political background and career stops, he was no doubt ideologically pretty far apart from my views, but this was rarely evident to me in his professional conduct and he was clearly a cut above the other mainstream media hacks in his professionalism and work ethic. […]
Buckley Remembered
I believe that the duel between Christianity and atheism is the most important in the world. I further believe that the struggle between individualism and collectivism is the same struggle reproduced on another level.–William F. Buckley, Jr., God and Man at Yale, 1951. Obviously, Bill Buckley had the essentials of the struggle pretty well nailed […]
Remembering Henry Hyde
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. […]
An American Hero
Shelby Steele calls him the “freest black man in America”, and the more I read of the life and worldview of Justice Clarence Thomas as reflected in his new book, My Grandfather’s Son and related interviews, the more I am convinced that he is correct in the purest sense of the word. Here is a […]
It’s Still All About Him
Bill Clinton never ceases to amaze. The Chris Wallace interview flap, which should have been an overnight story, has had media legs for over a week with no signs of abating. Was the act he pulled a spontaneous combustion or a pre-meditated strike? Who will ever know? If it was a pre-meditated outburst, it seems […]
A Man For The Ages
To the volumes written and spoken about Pope John Paul II over the past few weeks, there is not much to be added. I will simply make a few personal observations. First, after reading two of his books and closely monitoring his leadership over the 27 years of his papacy, it seems to me that […]
Ronald Reagan, God Speed and R.I.P.
If the beginning of my political initiation was the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964, the highlight of which was “the speech” delivered by Ronald Reagan to a Los Angeles audience, the maturity of my political thought began in 1980 with Reagan’s election as President. He was, along with Margaret Thatcher, my largest hero in public […]
Person Of The Year?
However well deserved, Time Magazine’s designation of the U. S. soldier as its “Person of the Year” somehow struck me as curious—a combination of intentional oversight and begrudging acknowledgement of George W. Bush’s dominance of the world stage in 2003. Not that I would detract from the honor and courage with which our young men […]
Moynihan Remembered
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of my favorite liberals and public servants, recently went on to his reward. My friend Matt Ladner sent me an excerpt from Moynihan’s book, Miles to Go, which is very instructive about him as well as liberal thought as we have come to know it. It seems that Moynihan and a […]