WASHINGTON — It is that time of year when we depart for
summer vacation. We head for the woods and mountains. Unless we
planned to visit the Gulf, we head for the beach. Oh, what the
hell. Even if we planned to visit the Gulf, let us head for the
beaches. All the beaches I have seen there look pretty clean. So
let us hit the beaches there too. It is cheap! America is a vast
continental country, and so we have various locales to infest
during summertime vacation. I prefer the beach, but maybe you
prefer the mountains or even wander off to one of our great
cities to tour. Barack Obama headed off to Acadia National Park
on Mount Desert Island in Maine for a few days. Good for him.
Unfortunately, he came back.
Yet what are we going to bring with us on vacation?
Lotions, picnic baskets, toys for the kids, high tech and
otherwise? If you are like me, you will want to bring a book. I
am always surprised when debate begins among Americans about the
educations of our young. Only a minority of American adults read,
so why are we surprised that the young falter in school? Few
Americans stress reading and reading is essential for success in
school. But you knew that or you would not be reading this
column. What books will make up your list? Let me suggest a few
for you.
Preeminently, I suggest The Citizen’s Constitution: An
Annotated Guide by Seth Lipsky, the founding editor of the
New York Sun. Seth is a legendary newspaperman, but he
is something more, a first class writer and a student of the
Constitution. As he says, “the country is in a Constitutional
moment.” Limited government is the bedrock of our way of life.
“With the Congress and the White House expanding government’s
grasp we have only the Constitution to protect us.” The Arizona
immigration law, health care issues, gun control, gay marriage —
“all,” says Lipsky, “are coming down to the Constitution.” Lipsky
has written a very readable explication of it, and it comes down
on the side of the Tea Partiers as the Founding Fathers would
expect.
Brief Lives: An Intimate and Very Personal Portrait of
the Twentieth Century by the British historian
Paul Johnson is worth a read. Asked to write his autobiography,
the great man demurred, but he did serve up glimpses of great
figures he has known, from Margaret Thatcher to Princess Diana to
Gerald Ford, to Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, with all manner
of man and woman thrown in between. The book begins with two
paragraphs devoted to Konrad Adenauer and ends with two more on
Woodrow Wyatt, whom I did not know. We Yanks need not know who
the minor figures are to enjoy this book. Its observations about
public figures are instructive. On Reagan he writes, “He was
friendly to all.… At a certain level, he was ice-cold.” In
telling yarns and observations about figures he has known he
tells us much about himself and the art of the historian.
Books are coming out about William F. Buckley, but none is
better than by Buckley himself. For a taste of his wit and
analytical prowess, I suggest you savor Athwart History: Half
a Century of Polemics, Animadversions, and Illuminations: A
William F. Buckley Jr. Omnibus, edited by Linda Bridges and
Roger Kimball. In the years ahead dubious fellows are going to
write on Bill. Bridges and Kimball preserve the Master’s voice
and let him speak for himself. One who has us all apprehensive is
Sam Tanenhaus, editor of the New York Times Book Review.
Recently he wrote an article in the New Republic, “The
Death of Conservatism,” that he liked so well he elongated it
with padding and published it as a book by the same title. It was
even reviewed in the September 29, 2009 issue of the paper.
Naturally I felt that when I met him head on a few months later
with Beyond the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to
Recovery he would defend himself, especially when I wrote
“Conservatism is America’s longest dying political philosophy”
with him in mind. Not at all; he completely ignored the book, and
that is why Liberals are so smugly stupid. They take no notice of
those who oppose them. Let me suggest my book and that of Sean
Hannity, Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical
Agenda. I offer a little more on where we came from
intellectually. Hannity offers a little more on Obama. Both are
better than Tanenhaus, starting with the observation conservatism
is not dead.
Finally, before letting you go let me suggest a novel, Ian
McEwan’s Solar. It sends up the whole global warming
movement. It is riotously funny. McEwan seems to understand how
the pliant government, the environmental movement, and venal
scientists work and he explains it. Now if only it would cool
off.
