Reagan's Near Miss With Destiny

This week I started in on a new book, Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan, by Del Quentin Wilber, and I am loving the book already. No surprise there, since I'm a big fan of the Gipper. Wilber writes about the day when Reagan was shot by John Hinckley Jr. in the early weeks of his first term.

The book alternates along three tracks as the story progresses. On one track is the President, Vice President Bush, the First Lady, and how the administration is settling in and taking on the reins of gov't. On another is John Hinckley Jr. and how his life is spiraling out of control. And last is Jerry Parr, the Secret Service agent who was head of Reagan's security detail and who was instrumental in saving the President's life.

The stories about Reagan, Parr, and how the Secret Service evolved over the decades between Kennedy and Reagan are fascinating to read. You read about Reagan's famous charm and his encounters with people behind the scenes. Here's one good story about Reagan and Agent Johnny Guy just after the election in California:

One afternoon, Reagan asked Guy if they could ditch the press and visit his tailor in Beverly Hills. Reagan was restless and did not like the idea of being stalked by a horde of reporters while being measured for a new suit. Guy didn’t think an “off-the-record” movement would be a problem, so he put a hat on Reagan and seated the president-elect next to him in the back of an unmarked and unarmored Secret Service sedan. Before they drove off, they stopped briefly at an encampment of reporters staking out Reagan’s house for news stories. Rolling down the window, Guy asked, “Can we get you guys some sodas or something?” No thanks, the reporters replied. As the car pulled away, Reagan laughed and clapped his hands. “That was just great,” he said. p. 32

There's a lot packed into this book about the significance of the events and the people involved that will probably preoccupy my mind long after I'm done with the book. I'll try to flesh some of that out in proper review, hopefully in a couple of weeks or so.

Here is a New York Times review that captures what the book is about:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/books/rawhide-down-the-near-assassination-of-ronald-reagan-by-del-quentin-wilber.html

America, The Last Best Hope

Dennis Prager is one of my favorite talk radio hosts and his program is one of the most valuable on the air. Still the Best Hope is his first book in 12 years and in it he explains what makes America truly exceptional. One of the themes he talks about often on his program is what he calls the American Trinity: Liberty, In God We Trust, and E. Pluribus Unum. These three principles form the basis of the American value system that Prager believes the world must adopt in order to defeat evil. I should say now that he doesn't mean to say that American culture should be exported to the rest of the world.

Prager places a high emphasis on establishing clarity on the issue rather than trying to reach agreement. He is very meticulous about defining his views and those on the opposite side of a debate on a particular issue. Regular listeners know that he goes to great lengths not to exaggerate anything although he does make generalizations wherever reasonable.

This interview on Uncommon Knowledge gives you the highlights of Dennis Prager and serves as a great introduction to him. You will know what he's about and where he's coming from on the issues.

Another Volley For Free Enterprise

It seems that 2012 is the year for making the moral case for free enterprise, for me at least. I read Arthur C. Brooks' book The Battle earlier this year and had a chance to attend a book event in San Francisco and meet him. After the last four years it is definitely the right time to be arguing for free markets. The stakes are high.

This book review I came across from RJ Moeller, whom I follow on Twitter. The book is by Rev. Robert Sirico, head of The Acton Institute, and it's called Defending the Free Market: A Moral Case for a Free Economy. Moeller's makes Sirico out to be a person who is intelligent, wise (not the same thing), and moderate. He seems like a person who actually puts his knowledge towards a productive end. This will be added to my monstrously large Nook library and I hope I can get to it soon. Enjoy,

http://valuesandcapitalism.com/dialogue/economics/rev-robert-sirico%E2%80%99s-moral-case-free-economy

Enough With The Cliches!

Jonah Goldberg is one of my favorite authors/pundits. If you don't follow news and politics much then this is the one guy you should follow. And anyone from any part of the political spectrum can have fun reading his work. He's an intellectual heavyweight but he can talk about the current issues using metaphors and images plucked from pop culture. People who are very political tend to take themselves too seriously and much of what's written and said is melodramatic. Goldberg keeps his sanity by injecting humor into his commentary. He seems to know that most people don't care about what happens in politics and he has an outsider's perspective that I appreciate.

Here he talks about his current book, Tyranny of Cliches, a book about all the platitudes that he hears from the left. He takes them apart one by one. He also talks a little about his first book, Liberal Fascism. Enjoy,

The Executive Fraternity

I haven't read this book yet but it looks very interesting. The ongoing political debates are often very partisan and meant to score political points. This book gets behind the scenes of the partisanship and gives us a glimpse of what this unique group of men share. Here is a great interview by a good friend who runs a fantastic program.

And here's a review from WaPo:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-the-presidents-club-by-nancy-gibbs-and-michael-duffy/2012/04/27/gIQAgxX2lT_story_1.html

Mysteries of the Aleppo Codex

I came across an interesting book review for an interesting (I hope) book about the oldest copy of the Hebrew bible-the Aleppo Codex. It traces back to two scribes living by the Sea of Galilee in the 10th century who wanted to create a copy of the bible that would be a template for future generations. It then traveled to Jerusalem, Egypt, and finally arriving in the Syrian city of Aleppo where it stayed for 600 years. In the 1950's it makes its way back to Jerusalem but a controversy arises over how it got there. Aleppo's rabbi's contend that the codex was taken by Itzhak Ben-Zvi, who smuggled it out of Aleppo when the Jewish quarter was being plundered in riots, and given to the Israeli gov't without their permission. Ben-Zvi happens to be the second Prime Minister of Israel-an interesting aside. 

Matti Friedman, the author of The Aleppo Codex, investigates this story and also the mystery of what happened to the missing pages of the text, about 200 pages or 40% of the document.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303918204577448610210896018.html

Churchill: The Literary Minister

I've always found Churchill to be an interesting person in history. He is one big walking set of contradictions and maybe that's what I identify with in him. I do admire his literary skills and tremendous amount of writing that he published. I read his first volume of Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples and that is the way history should be written. He inserts his bias unashamedly but still remains quite fair to the people and events he records.

This review in the Wall Street Journal is for Mr. Churchill's Profession by Peter Clarke, also author or Liberty's Exiles. Clarke writes about Churchill's literary career and its significance as a source of income. There's more to learn about the book which I won't get into here, so enjoy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303360504577408463241458658.html?mod=WSJ_Books_LS_Books_8

The Decline And Fall Of The West?

In How The West Was Lost, Dambisa Moyo argues that the West is at a tipping point after 50 years of poor, short-term policy decisions that have brought it to a point where there are dangerously high numbers of unskilled, unemployed workers and major structural problems in the economy and gov't. She sounds the alarm that we are on a path to severely diminished status as a second world economy. There seems to be much consensus about the problems she lays out in her book but not as much about her proposed solutions. A lot of people are uncomfortable with her suggestion that the West should adopt protectionist policies to buy time to solve these structural problems. She also says that a debt default would not hurt the U.S. as much as it would the rest of the world. From her interview on BBC HARDtalk:

And part 2: