History
April 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
John Hinderaker posted a moving account of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral here yesterday, noting the reading by Baroness Thatcher’s 19-year-old granddaughter Amanda. I wanted to see Ms. Thatcher’s reading and I assume many of you do as well. Looking for an embeddable video without a preceding advertisement, I found ITN’s video posted on YouTube below. STEVE adds: It has been commonplace for years for conservatives to say, “I wish we had
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April 17, 2013 — John Hinderaker
After days of predictions of mass protests, etc., nothing of the sort happened, and Margaret Thatcher’s funeral was carried of with characteristic British pomp. Spectators estimated at over 100,000 paid their respects with spontaneous applause. The Telegraph describes the scene: It seemed to come out of nowhere. No one knew who’d started it – perhaps it was purely instinctual. But as the hearse came into view, the crowds found themselves
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April 10, 2013 — Steven Hayward
There can really only be one fitting subject for a mid-week photo/cartoon/meme roundup. Yup.
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April 8, 2013 — John Hinderaker
I yield to no one in my admiration for Margaret Thatcher; this photo of me with her, taken in 1997, is displayed proudly in my library: I agree with Paul that she saved Great Britain, at least for a generation. And Britain continues to benefit from her accomplishments: there is no Soviet threat, the unions have never regained their power, and Britain hasn’t adopted the Euro. But did she really
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April 8, 2013 — Steven Hayward
When Leo Strauss received the news that Winston Churchill had died in January 1965, he made the following spontaneous remarks in his classroom at the University of Chicago on the lessons of Churchill’s life—lessons that apply just as well to Margaret Thatcher. His conclusion: The death of Churchill reminds us . . . of our duty. We have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves
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April 4, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Cassius Marcellus Clay was, of course, Muhammad Ali’s name. If I ever knew who the original C. M. Clay was, I’d forgotten, until I got a package in the mail today that included a t-shirt. The shirt was accompanied by a letter from a reader who was recently discharged from the Army. Along with other ventures, he is selling this t-shirt on Amazon; you can buy it here for a
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April 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In previewing the new issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) yesterday we featured Bill Voegeli’s demolition of Michael Grunwald’s panegyric supporting the godawful stimulus bill of 2009, enacted right around the time that the recession was ending (according to the National Bureau of Economic Research). We continue our preview today with Hillsdale College Professor R.J. Pestritto’s review of Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition, by Bowdoin
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March 28, 2013 — Steven Hayward
This next installment from Herb Meyer’s YAF lecture on Bill Casey features a hilarious description of Casey explaining why being a member of the Soviet Politburo in the 1980s was “not a lot of fun.” Having read some translations of transcripts of Politburo meetings (not available to the CIA at the time), I can see what he meant. They came to resemble faculty meetings run by worn-out left-wingers. This segment
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March 27, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Herewith the second installment of our conversation with Charles C. Johnson, about his new book Why Coolidge Matters. In this six-minute segment, we talk about Coolidge’s early reputation as a Progressive Republican, and his spiritual outlook that partially grounded his constitutional conservatism.
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March 27, 2013 — Steven Hayward
In this next installment from Herbert Meyer’s YAF lecture on William Casey and the Cold War, he explains the importance of going on offense against the Soviet Union. Along the way, he drops some very big hints about the circumstances behind the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in May of 1981. (About 9 minutes long.) Coming later: a hilarious account of how Bill Casey described the misery of
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March 26, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I made a brief reference here the other day to a lecture Herbert Meyer recently gave to the Young Americas Foundation on the occasion of the 100th birthday of William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s extraordinary CIA director. Meyer was a special assistant to Casey from 1981 to 1985. This lecture, along with Meyer’s contribution to the endgame of the Cold War, deserve more attention. American Cold War policy might be said
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March 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
James Wagner has found himself in a familiar position and he has dealt with it in the familiar fashion. Speaking as the president of Emory University, he praised one of the constitutional compromises with slavery. Writing in the university’s alumni magazine, Wagner cited the provision counting slaves as three-fifths of the population that determined congressional representation (and electoral votes in presidential elections) as a compromise that should inspire today’s gridlocked
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March 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Yasser Arafat was responsible for the 1973 Black September operation in Khartoum that resulted in the murder of the American ambassador to Sudan (Cleo Noel) and his departing aide (Curt Moore). I read everything I could get my hands on about the operation for the Weekly Standard article “How Arafat got away with murder,” including key cables released by the State Department in the immediate aftermath of the murders. I
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February 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Five years ago today National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away at home, at his desk, while working. NR commemorates his death with a symposium on WFB, an interview with Alvin Felzenberg, and a personal recollection by St. Paul native Larry Perelman. Buckley’s NR editorial colleague Jeffrey Hart opened my eyes to the claims of the great tradition while I had the great good fortune of being his
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February 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I’m at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s West Coast Retreat. The historian Ronald Radosh — one of my favorites — spoke on a great panel on the culture this afternoon along with Andrew Klavan and Ben Shapiro. After the panel, I caught up with Ron to ask him a few questions on matters of interest to me. I’ve been wrestling with the interaction between iMovie and YouTube to get the
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February 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Today is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington’s greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend. Take, for example, Washington’s contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that resulted
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February 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Steve recently recalled the name of former Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall with fondness. Steve’s recollection prompted this first-hand account by attorney and Power Line reader Bill Levin in which Saltonstall, or at least one of his life lessons, makes a cameo appearance: It is not every day that you get to share a Leverett Saltonstall story involving Eliot Richardson and Judge Bork. During the Bork confirmation hearings, working in the
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