Jeane Kirkpatrick - Her blunt style and strong defense of liberty will be missed.

Wall Street Journal ^ | December 9, 2006 | Masthead Editorial

[neverdem]

Jeane Kirkpatrick, who died yesterday at 80, was that rare thing--a public intellectual and a public figure. She excelled at both.

Ms. Kirkpatrick is known to the public at large because Ronald Reagan, after defeating Jimmy Carter for the Presidency in 1980, appointed her U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It is worth mentioning in this context that earlier this week Senate Democrats succeeded finally in driving John Bolton from the U.N. ambassadorship. The mind's eye recalls the televised image in the early 1980s of Ambassador Kirkpatrick, a Democrat then, seated at the U.N. Security Council table and publicly defending U.S. interests against the Soviet Union with an articulate, no-nonsense bluntness that makes Mr. Bolton sound like Little Bo-Peep by comparison. That style--American interests made perfectly clear--will be missed.

She knew how to use words as weapons. Her most famous turn of phrase, at the 1984 GOP convention, was "San Francisco Democrats." Ms. Kirkpatrick's "Blame America First" speech marked her most public departure from the Democratic Party.

Explaining in an interview years later why she and other Democratic intellectuals--yes, they were neoconservatives--formed the anti-Soviet Committee for the Present Danger and aligned themselves with Ronald Reagan, Ms. Kirkpatrick said: "We were concerned about the weakening of Western will." Incidentally, the antipathy to "the neoconservatives" that one hears so often these days flows back directly to those years and the neocon battles with American liberals.

No one ever doubted Jeane Kirkpatrick's will or courage. Among those who most appreciated her determination to speak truth to totalitarian power was the celebrated Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov. Exiled by the Soviet government to Gorky, Sakharov said later how important it was to have a person of Jeane Kirkpatrick's stature publicly identify jailed Soviet dissidents by name. For...

[neverdem]

[the invisib1e hand]

...the living will envy the dead...

[Nancee]

" It is worth mentioning in this context that earlier this week Senate Democrats succeeded finally in driving John Bolton from the U.N. ambassadorship. The mind's eye recalls the televised image in the early 1980s of Ambassador Kirkpatrick, a Democrat then, seated at the U.N. Security Council table and publicly defending U.S. interests against the Soviet Union with an articulate, no-nonsense bluntness that makes Mr. Bolton sound like Little Bo-Peep by comparison. That style--American interests made perfectly clear--will be missed."

I really loved this lady!!

Nancee

[2ndDivisionVet]

She was a true American patriot. Many don't realize she was a registered democrat. Ambassador John Bolton was a fitting successor to Ambassador Kirkpatrick, and losing his services is doubly sad on the news of her passing. RIP Jeane.

[Cindy]

Ditto.

[Nancee]

BUMP!!!

[Humble Servant]

The end of an era. I have missed her forthright clarity and just plain guts. Godspeed, Jeane.

[Senator Goldwater]

Perhaps the first Democrat to publicly break with Jimmy Carter, along with Max Kampelmann.

There are no longer any Scoop Jackson Democrats left, which is why that party must never again be invested with our national security.

[dfwgator]

We've lost two Cold Warriors this week, Kirkpatrick and General Pinochet.

[Koblenz]

“America has lost a clarion voice for freedom. Ambassador Kirkpatrick was a genuine patriot who played a critical role in liberty’s triumph over totalitarianism in the Cold War. Ambassador Kirkpatrick profoundly understood that ideas have consequences, but she was not an armchair intellectual. She employed her great intellect in freedom’s struggle against tyranny. Once again, we are engaged in a battle with the forces of evil and totalitarianism and Jeane Kirkpatrick’s stalwart commitment to freedom should remain an inspiration to us. Jeane Kirkpatrick lived a life of a tribune of democracy. We mourn her passing.”

So who said the above?

 

  Sen. Joe Lieberman