A Twersky Sampler

The New York Sun remembers David TwerskyUngreat Generation – September 22, 2004At one point in his life, Mr. Kerry evinced a greater show of courage, but the key characteristic we should be looking for in a commander in chief is judgment. The next president will not lead a charge up the hill, like Teddy Roosevelt. We are being asked to trade the fog of this war for the fog of one 30 years old. Neither side will prevail in the continued fight over Vietnam. As long as we stalemate on Vietnam, we will not agree on the current crisis, on the post-September 11 situation. That’s why it is dangerous, and not merely folly, to continue this civil war over the 1960s generation. We were not the greatest; we were unusually selfish; we were as given over to intellectual and spiritual fads as the unloved masses were addicted to the established culture; we found some courage amid many mistakes, we are who we are. We were the lost boys. It has nevertheless fallen to us, flawed though we may be, to provide a president in these dark hours.Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg: An Appreciation – April 27, 2006Never at a loss to flaunt my ignorance, I asked him about what he was talking, and he told me of the impending talks with Arafat. By the turn of the century, things were a bit different. Hertzberg met Lyndon LaRouche for several interviews, published in the political cult’s journal, Executive Intelligence Review. When I challenged Hertzberg on this, he told me that the he thought Mr. LaRouche was trying to repent and that meeting with him was proof of this. I attacked Arthur on this score, and we never spoke again, creating a loss I felt deeply while he was still alive, and all the more so now.War on Iran Has Begun – July 13, 2006Years from now, the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit will be regarded like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Against the backdrop of Kassam rocket fire on Israelis living within range of the Gaza Strip, it was the fate of Corporal Shalit that triggered the Israeli return to Gaza, which in turn brought the Hezbollah forces into the game.A Crude Comparison – July 25, 2007Mr. Ellison’s inept historical comparison draws on what the historian Richard Hofstadter called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” FDR knew in advance about the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor but kept silent in order to draw America into the war, the moon landing was shot in a studio in Arizona, the CIA killed JFK, etc., ad nauseam.Keep This Ally – November 9, 2007…Mr. Negroponte’s view is not anti-democratic. It is the only option among a limited choice of options that raises the odds of preventing a catastrophic outcome in which Pakistan will have neither a democratic government nor a pro-American policy.In Search of Real Time Answers – December 11, 2007The point is not to denigrate the American services but to underscore how fragile the foundations on which “high” or “moderate” confidence estimates are based including the National Intelligence Estimate’s “high confidence” that Iran suspended its nuclear weaponization program in 2003 as well as its assessment of only “moderate confidence” that Tehran had not restarted it as of mid-2007.

A Twersky Sampler

A Twersky Sampler

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