Henry Adams, about whom Garry Wills has written at length, concluded upon observing politics up close that "power is poison." Garry Wills appears to have reached the same conclusion regarding Barack Obama.
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David Horowitz's tribute to Sarah Horowitz is an act of grace, a recognition that however important his own work, it is no more important than the gifts his daughter gave to those around her who could never aspire to brilliance or success or celebrity. A review of A Cracking of the Heart. My personal paean to a few great men, now lost to us, who had the capacity to think critically, to write movingly, to engage thoughtfully on the plain of ideas. If it is true you can measure the greatness of a person, by the greatness of their enemies, then Palin surely has greatness in her. The formulaic response to America on the Left is all too familiar – we are wrong pretty much whatever we do, our culture despicable, our military ventures criminal, our economic and moral systems salvageable only by appeals to statism. Ronald Reagan will go down as a critical leader at a critical time and as one of the United States' most important presidents. A review of James Mann's The Rebellion of Ronald Reaan: A History of the End of the Cold War. In his new book, Losing Mum and Pup, Christopher Buckley reveals in a moving way the human side of his famous father and mother, underscoring that even those known for their grace, charm and immense talents face the same challenges and limitations as the rest of us. It is also a moving tribute to his [...] George W. Bush took on some of the toughest challenges in our nation's modern history — the worst attack on our shores, the worst natural disaster, the worst global economic situation in 75 years and he did it without ever whining or bashing others. William F. Buckley, Jr. was arguably the most conspicuous intellectual lightning rod on critical political and intellectual issues for nearly three decades. The deeper you explore his life and the people with whom he conversed, debated and corresponded, the more you realize the remarkable reach of his enterprise. Though William F. Buckley, Jr. was hardly a member in good standing in the environmental movement, he deserves credit for dealing with the issue seriously, if infrequently. While he was not hostile to environmental concerns, he positioned himself more in opposition to the fad of modern environmentalism than as a proponent of legitimate public policies around [...] When we lose this year it will be largely because we failed to articulate in a compelling way the great enterprise for which we labor and struggle. The inauthentic man faces a difficult balancing act, for he is not only avoiding the truth, he has forgotten where he put the truth. In his new book Unintended Consequences, Peter Galbraith argues that the Iraq experiment, at least relative to Bush's stated goals, is doomed to fail. As liberal as he may be, there is no indication that Barack Obama plans to nationalize our major industries or centrally run our economy. I find the General's endorsement rooted more in emotion than in the pressing issues, domestic and international, that face us as a free society. Every Obama solution calls for centralized government power, while McCain demonstrated a pragmatic understanding of the limits of government. It hardly seems possible that William F. Buckley's son has endorsed Barack Obama. If you think this is bad, wait until the polls get close again. I dug up another quote by Sarah Palin and I thought readers should consider just how deeply offensive appeals to God during war time are. Sarah Palin is a formidable political force, but during her speech she made mistakes that, if not corrected, will limit her appeal and her campaign's ability to win. William F. Buckley, Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith agreed on virtually nothing in the public sphere. Whereas Buckley celebrated the free market and the anti-collectivist views of Hayek and Nock, Galbraith was an unrelenting critic of an economic system that left, in his view, millions of Americans vulnerable to capricious circumstances. In Noam Chomsky's world, there is a pro-American capitalist exploiter behind every tree. He is the ultimate ideologue, devoted to explaining history, or at least American history and foreign policy, through a single prism. For Chomsky, to even engage in a discussion about Vietnam was to lose one’s humanity. But that didn't prevent him from going on William [...] The cultural impact of the 1960s was sobering: divorce, pornography, drug use, single-parent families, infidelities, unwed mothers and teen-aged pregnancies all exploded, contributing to enclaves of dysfunctional and destructive behavior that constituted a national disaster. Norman Mailer, for all his (occasional) claims of being a social conservative, played a prominent role in ushering in this [...] Michael Harrington helped ignite The Great Society and all the benefits and problems that were associated with that effort, and made the elimination of poverty a staple of Democratic politics. Natually he clashed with William F. Buckley, Jr., who viewed Johnson’s war on poverty as an exercise in futility. Forty years ago, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. gave the nation one of the most infamous moments of incivility in television history. Buckley got over it; Gore Vidal never did. |
 
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