I am very sad indeed to read of the death in Washington DC of Irving Kristol at the age of 89. Kristol was one of the intellectual titans of our age, and his influence on the course of American thinking, culture and politics was simply immense. As the godfather of neo-conservatism, the philosophy which has been so much misunderstood and grievously misrepresented as the ‘war-mongering’ doctrine behind the administration of George W Bush, Kristol – along with his wife, the scarcely less intellectually formidable Gertrude Himmelfarb -- was the first public intellectual to understand and articulate a defence of western civilisation against the onslaught mounted by the moral and cultural relativism of the nihilistic left. It wasn’t conservatism; although it embodied certain recognisable conservative instincts, it was also classical liberal thinking in that it was not reactionary but progressive in... A: The Czechs. And the Poles. As theAssociated Press reports: Poles and Czechs voiced deep concern Friday at President Barack Obama's decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense shield planned for their countries. ‘Betrayal! The U.S. sold us to Russia and stabbed us in the back,’ the Polish tabloid Fakt declared on its front page. Polish President Lech Kaczynski said he was concerned that Obama's new strategy leaves Poland in a dangerous ‘gray zone’ ... An editorial in Hospodarske Novine, a respected pro-business Czech newspaper, said: ‘an ally we rely on has betrayed us, and exchanged us for its own, better relations with Russia, of which we are rightly afraid. ‘The move has raised fears in the two nations they are
Monday, 21st September 2009
Irving Kristol, 1920-2009
9:53pm
Friday, 18th September 2009
Groundhog day in central Europe
4:32pm
Q: Who in 2009 is playing the role of the Czechs at Munich in 1938?
...
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
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