Jean Kirkpatrick, Great American

As you would expect, when the Associated Press announced the news of the death of Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick at the age of 80 the one thing it did not mention was the greatest moment in her life.

It was the “Blame America First” speech at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

You remember. She famously connected the “San Francisco Democrats” with the instinct, so common among liberals then and now to “Blame America First,” as in:

When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.



But then, they always blame America first.

How we roared with delight at her speech. It was almost as glorious as the moment at the 1992 Republican National Convention when President Reagan advised the delegates what to do about Candidate Clinton. “Don’t. Inhale.” It brought the house down.

Jean Kirkpatrick distinguished herself with a 1979 article in Commentary magazine “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” in which she differentiated between authoritarian dictators (who were often US allies) and totalitarian dictators (who were usually not).

It was a differentiation that Democrats did not enjoy, because they preferred to make an opposite inference, the moral equivalence argument. They preferred to rail at the US support for fascist dictators and remain silent about communist totalitarianism.

The Commentary article brought her to the notice of President Reagan and an appointment to the United Nations as US Ambassador.

Needless to say, Ambassador Kirkpatrick was forever after damaged goods to the mainstream media, and you can get the flavor of their distaste in the AP news item announcing her death. It describes her as “an unabashed apostle of Reagan era conservatism,” a woman with “a reputation as a blunt and acerbic advocate,” and “a controversial figure like [UN Ambassador John] Bolton.” Well, you would think that—if you were a Democrat.

In fact Jean Kirkpatrick was a great American who served with distinction in the pivotal first term of the Reagan administration. It was a time when the failed economic policies of the 1970s were reversed and the present prosperity was founded. And it was the period when the failed Carter administration foreign policy was replaced with a robust foreign policy that won the Cold War without a shot being fired.

And that, according to theorist of war Sun Tzu, is hands-down the best way to win a war.

What could be more unabashed, more un-blunt, un-acerbic, and more uncontroversial than that?