I’m a really pathetic blogger. So naturally I’m honored that Radley thought of me when he went fishing for guest bloggers. I know he built this place from the ground up with blood and sweat, so I’ll try not to burn the place to the ground in his absence. (I’ve already got a Google news alert set up for “no-knock raids.”)

I’m also honored to be in such illustrious company as Gene, Ryan and Jim. I don’t know Gene and Ryan as much, but back in the day I broke bread with the incomparable Mr. Bovard a few times. So I hope will appreciate that I have a more optimistic take on his dismay over the feting of “tyrant apologists.”

On Tuesday, I attended The Phillips Foundation annual dinner. The Phillips Foundation is an organization that gives large grants to young journalists interested in free-market ideas. I was a 2002 Phillips Fellow and my wife was a 2004 Fellow. It’s a wonderful organization, though I’m obviously compromised.

Anyway, they give out a lifetime achievement award every year at the annual dinner — past recipients have included William F. Buckley, George Will, Bob Novak and Rupert Murdoch. While there are plenty of libertarian journalists involved with Phillips, the Foundation’s trustees and supporters are about as mainstream conservative an audience as you are likely to find.

Anyway, this year the lifetime acievement award went to Arnaud de Borchgrave. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from him; I certainly didn’t expect that de Borchgrave’s acceptance speech would constitute an exceedingly witty and unbelievably stinging attack on the war in Iraq, calling it the greatest blunder in modern history — and he delivered it to the most pro-Bush audience imaginable. He got a standing ovation.

I don’t know whether this means that conservatives are less monolithic than you realize or the tide of sentiment in the war is turning. But it’s something. Now sorry for intruding Jim. You can go back to making that batch of muffins for Wolfowitz’s World Bank farewell basket.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 2:46 pm by Mark Hemingway and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.