Friday, October 5, 2007

Friday thoughts

This is noteworthy: Dan Keating, the last surviving veteran of the 1919-1921 Irish War of Independence died on Wednesday. By all appearences, he never really gave up the fight, going so far as to participate in a 1939-1940 IRA bombing campaign of London -- and never accepting old-age benefits from the "illegitimate" Republic of Ireland.

I might update this post with a few more thoughts later. The old "Irish question" was really what got me interested in my senior thesis topic, Churchill & empire, in the first place. It's a fascinating bit of history.

In other news: As I first suspected last Friday, Peggy Noonan has a crush on Barack Obama.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Money quote from the Noonan piece:

"'It's all over but the voting,' said Rep. Tom Petri, who will probably get pummeled a bit by the campaign for premature triumphalism."

Ah, well, guess we can go home, then. Doesn't this all ring just a bit familiar? Have we forgotten the legacy of invincible Howard Dean so quickly? The real question is not whether Hillary is beatable, but how her current popularity will affect the positions of other candidates as they try to posture themselves into her (currently held) limelight.

As Bartlet would say, "What's next?"

Paul Snatchko said...

I have a crush on Peggy Noonan. Her book about JPII (and her own spiritual journey) was excellent.