Quite a lot of my recent reading time has been devoted to the history of the Medieval period, or the Middle Ages, particularly in terms of the impact of the Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions and their respective influence on the development of Western civilization. Much of what I read and learned involved correcting many misconceptions about […]
Archives for May 2009
Deja Vu
A couple of entries from the Wall Street Journal’s “Notable and Quotable” section just days apart recently caught my attention. One is from Doris Kearns Goodwin on Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society from her book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, the other is from a 1939 article in the New York Herald Tribune […]
The Souter Replacement
Well, very soon we won’t have Justice David Souter to kick around anymore. Arguably George H. W. Bush’s worst decision as President (my choice), even topping the violation of his “no new taxes” pledge, Souter has haunted us for nineteen years with the nightmare of what might have been had Bush not listened to Warren Rudman and […]
The Hero of the Opportunity Society
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 […]