Remembering on Memorial Day

 

Scott Johnson at PowerLine:

In observance of Memorial Day 2007 the Wall Street Journal published a brilliant column by the late Peter Collier to mark the occasion. The column remains timely and is accessible online here. I don’t think we’ll read or hear anything more thoughtful or appropriate to the occasion today. 

The entire column is worth reading; it begins:

Once we knew who and what to honor on Memorial Day: those who had given all their tomorrows, as was said of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy, for our todays. But in a world saturated with selfhood, where every death is by definition a death in vain, the notion of sacrifice today provokes puzzlement more often than admiration. We support the troops, of course, but we also believe that war, being hell, can easily touch them with an evil no cause for engagement can wash away. And in any case we are more comfortable supporting them as victims than as warriors.

. . .

Not long ago I was asked to write the biographical sketches for a book featuring formal photographs of all our living Medal of Honor recipients. As I talked with them, I was, of course, chilled by the primal power of their stories. But I also felt pathos: They had become strangers–honored strangers, but strangers nonetheless–in our midst.

***

In my own boyhood, figures such as Jimmy Doolittle, Audie Murphy and John Basilone were household names. And it was assumed that what they had done defined us as well as them, telling us what kind of nation we were. But the 110 Medal recipients alive today are virtually unknown except for a niche audience of warfare buffs. Their heroism has become the military equivalent of genre painting. There’s something wrong with that.

Mr. Collier vividly describes actions taken by Medal of Honor recipients, and then closes his column:

We impoverish ourselves by shunting these heroes and their experiences to the back pages of our national consciousness. Their stories are not just boys’ adventure tales writ large. They are a kind of moral instruction. They remind of something we’ve heard many times before but is worth repeating on a wartime Memorial Day when we’re uncertain about what we celebrate. We’re the land of the free for one reason only: We’re also the home of the brave.

The full column is here.

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Created Equal on PBS tonight (Monday 5/18)

Scott Johnson at Power Line recommends Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words on PBS tonight:

I wrote about Michael Pack’s documentary on Justice Thomas in “Clarence Thomas speaks.” The title of the film is Created Equal. We ran to one of our local suburban multiplexes to see it upon its release this past winter, in the good old days when such activities were permitted. If you missed it, however, you may want to catch it tonight on PBS, where it is scheduled to be broadcast at 9:00 p.m. (Eastern), but check your local listings. It turns up tonight at 10:00 on the schedule of our local PBS channel.

This is my take on the film. The left could not and cannot deal with Justice Thomas. They disparage him for his silence on the bench, but they don’t want him speaking out either. His comments on the Anita Hill episode — his comments then and now — are utterly devastating. Joe Biden makes a cameo appearance as a complete and utter buffoon. This section of the film should elicit feelings of rage and disgust from sentient beings, and yet the scenario is as current as today’s headlines. I am so grateful this movie exists and urge you to see it.

The Power Line blog is here.  WVIZ in Cleveland lists a 10pm-12 broadcast.

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Documentary on Justice Clarence Thomas

Scott Johnson at PowerLine reports:

Last night we saw the fantastic documentary Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words in theater 18 of one of our local suburban AMC multiplexes. It might have been a seat or two short of a sell-out, but we had to settle for two seats in the first row. It was packed.

. . .

The left could not and cannot deal with Justice Thomas. They disparage him for his silence on the bench, but they don’t want him speaking out either. His comments on the Anita Hill episode — his comments then and now — are utterly devastating. Joe Biden makes a cameo appearance as a complete and utter buffoon. This section of the film should elicit feelings of rage and disgust from sentient beings, and yet the scenario is as current as today’s headlines. I am so grateful this movie exists and urge you to see it.

Click here for the rest of Mr. Johnson’s report, which includes links to other online reviews as well as the trailer for the documentary.

If you live near New Bremen, Ohio, you can see this new film.  It’s the only Ohio venue currently showing this film.  But I’ll keep checking the home page for the documentary for any upcoming screenings in the greater Cleveland area.

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The Plot Against the President

Some readers will not have the time to read book-length investigations into Deep State and media-fueled hoaxes. So here’s an excerpt from Scott Johnson’s review of Lee Smith’s book, The Plot Against the President, posted at Power Line:

All The President’s Men, Take 2

Lee Smith is the author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in US History. The book is an invaluable companion to Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency; it adds to and amplifies the case McCarthy makes. I wrote about McCarthy’s book in “All the president’s men, Obama style.” Smith’s book elaborates on the theme to which I alluded in the heading of that post. I urge all readers with an interest in this incredible scandal to read both books.

Lee Smith is a great journalist. This bears on one of the book’s principal themes: the complicity of the press in peddling the hoax alleging the collusion of the Trump campaign with organs of the Russian government. In peddling the hoax, the most prominent organs of the mainstream media were the accomplices of the perpetrators. The book cites the relevant stories and relentlessly names names demonstrating the “collusion” of the press with the Clinton campaign and the government — the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice — in peddling the Russian hoax as news.

Within the profession there has been no reckoning for the misconduct that the book makes out. On the contrary, at the profession’s upper reaches, we have seen only the renewed commitment to carry on the campaign to remove Trump from office. 

This book may be the closest we ever get to the day of reckoning that is due the press.

Read the full column here.

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