Uncle Walt and the Lost Era of Network News

by | Mar 10, 2013

Cronkite by Douglas Brinkley. HarperCollins, 2012. Hardcover, 819 pages, $35.Somewhere near the far turn of this absurdly long and generally fawning biography of the “most trusted man in America,” it seems that something of real importance suddenly dawned on...

Knowing It All

by | Apr 6, 2010

Journals: 1952–2000 by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., edited by Andrew Schlesinger and Stephen Schlesinger. The Penguin Press (New York) 894 pp., $40.00, 2007Historians of the American presidency are notorious for composing lists. The five greatest presidents … the five...

The Prince Redeemed

by | Sep 7, 2008

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert Novak. Crown Forum (New York) 662 pp., $29.95 cloth, 2007 If Hollywood is home to “kiss and tell” memoirs, should Washington be the source of the “kiss up and tell” variety? Not if you’re the...

The Problem with the World is You?

by | Sep 7, 2008

God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it by Jim Wallis. New York: HarperCollins, 2005, 2006. 432 pages. Nearly a century ago G. K. Chesterton asked “what’s wrong with the world?” His first and last answer was always the same: “I am.” In...

From Welch To Rand: Getting It, Buckley-Style

by | Jan 31, 2006

Getting It Right by William F. Buckley, Jr. Regnery Publishing, 2003. 311 pp., $24.95 cloth.“In your heart you know he’s right.” The slogan, of course, dates from the 1964 failed presidential campaign/crusade of Senator Barry Goldwater. Surprisingly,...