The point — and yes, I suppose I ought to get to it — was that WFB was tolerant of different views. It wasn’t a case of Godfatherly “I keep my friends close, my enemies closer.” It was a case of intellectual security and self-confidence. He wasn’t worried that hanging out with the enemy was going to corrupt his principles.
He famously maintained excellent friendships with the Left. With John Kenneth Galbraith, whom he teased mercilessly for a half-century, and to whose sick-bed he traveled every three weeks during the final years. With Ira Glasser of the — gasp! — ACLU. With George McGovern, who, cancer-ridden and hemmed in by massive South Dakotan snowdrifts, heroically ventured to WFB’s memorial service at St. Patrick’s. With Murray Kempton, the liberals’ Liberal, even to the point of secretly financing one of Murray’s books. With Daniel Patrick Moynihan—who had had the temerity to unseat WFB’s brother Jim for the Senate seat. This list, too, is long.
It is not for the likes of me — non-intellectual, and post-partisan — to tell AEI how to handle its resident scholars. But the teapot having been heated, let me now drop in my leaves and say that it strikes me that AEI has not burnished its reputation as a center of right-intellectual thought. And Tunku, for whom I have collegial regard and friendship, has not embellished his credentials as a fair-thinker. I say this because of his insinuation — unsupported by the evidence — that David was actually (wink, wink) let go for “goldbricking,” i.e, not pulling his weight. The briefest glance at David’s productivity and output during his tenure there ought to put the quietus on that canard. (Can one, in fact, put a “quietus” on a “canard”? Doubtless the Beast’s eager commentariat will have a few words on that score.)
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