The blogger Alan Sullivan has died. This was not unexpected as he frequently blogged about his illness, but one wished him longer life. He was knowledgeable and opinionated on a surprisingly large range of topics. I enjoyed his political commentary, and his hurricane-season weather analyses stood out as exceptionally shrewd and helpful for those of us who live in affected areas. The discussion sections of his posts were lively and often gathered many comments, so he must have had a large readership. Alav hashalom.
Obits
Irving Kristol, 1920-2009
Irving Kristol was a CCNY Boy, not a Chicago Boy.
Kristol was a Neoconservative when the “neo” part meant something. It started out as an insult, by former liberal friends, who derided Kristol and others for going where the evidence took them, and turning against their former views and former colleagues. The Neoconservatives were the people associated with The Public Interest magazine in the 1960s, mostly Jews from New York. The leading figures were Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Nathan Glazer and their circle. These guys followed a half-century course from Left to Right. They started out as Trotskyists at City College in New York in the ’30s and ’40s. Kristol describes that period here. They were anti-communist Social Democrats associated with Irving Howe and Sidney Hook in the 1950s. As the Democrat party undertook to build the Great Society in the 1960s, they became social planners. As that program failed, and Vietnam failed, and the McGovernite New Left began to take over the party, they became Scoop Jackson liberal hawks who were increasingly dubious about government social programs as well as staying hawkish on defense issues. As Jimmy Carter attempted to go beyond detente to something like appeasement, some switched parties and became Republicans. They were hawkish on defense and unideological and undogmatic critics of social programs that did not work. Kristol was the main figure in this intellectual odyssey. He and his colleagues added a critical infusion of intelligence and policy expertise to the conservative coalition that elected Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Perhaps Kristol’s most important contribution was his editorship of The Public Interest, which he described here. Recently, the complete archives of the Public Interest became available online.
Rest in peace.
UPDATE: Helen weighs in, with many good links.
Norman Borlaug, 1914-2009
Via Pejman Yousefzadeh, I hear that Norman Borlaug has passed; NYT obit.
In the face of caviling from scarcity-mentality “environmentalists,” he saved a billion lives. Requiescat in pace.
Kennedy the Catholic
A brief, charitable, fair yet accurate assessment of Sen. Kennedy. RTWT.
Many will speak and write of the legacy of Ted Kennedy in the days ahead. For me, as an East Coast “ethnic” grandchild of immigrants, Kennedy’s death symbolizes several cogent moments in Catholic America.
It marks the passing of a generation that thought that being Catholic, Democratic, and proNew Deal were synonymous. We now live in an age where many Catholic Americans are very happy to be described as pro-market and are suspicious of New Deallike solutions — as, of course, they are entitled to be in a way that they are not on, for example, life issues. Senator Kennedy had it exactly the wrong way around.
The author, Fr. Robert A. Sirico, of the Acton Institute, is a prolific writer and activist on behalf economic freedom: “The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.”
UPDATE: Here is an excellent article by Carl Cannon, about Sen. Kennedy, entitled “Mary Jo Kopechne and Chappaquiddick: America’s Selective Memory”. It is fair and fact-based.
In similar fashion, the editors of National Review do justice to the man, and end on a charitable note I will also end on: “May he encounter the divine mercy that both the greatest and the least of us will require at the end.” Amen.