Jeremy Corbyn/Photo Credit: Andy Rain European Pressphoto Agency
Recent links of note:
Day of Dupes
Robert Conquest, The Spectator
Our remembrance of Robert Conquest continues with a look back at his response to a letter published in The Times regarding the Bay of Pigs invasion. Conquest’s piece is a masterful takedown of the bien pensant public. With words that resonate now as then, Conquest perspicaciously declares, “There is something particularly unpleasant about those who, living in a political democracy, comfortably condone terror elsewhere.”
Isis Happens
Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal
Frequent New Criterion contributor Theodore Dalrymple offers perspective on the way the liberal media normalizes the malicious group known as ISIS by removing agency from its participants. By repeating that its zealots merely “fall into” ISIS, the media obscures the wickedness of its members, turning them into victims rather than agents of terror.
TWTB
Jay Nordlinger, National Review
Most of our readers may know Jay Nordlinger as the sharpest music critic in New York, but he is also a political wit writing for National Review’s blog on a regular basis. In this insightful piece, Nordlinger discusses the schadenfreude felt by Tories in viewing the potential election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Despite the mirth occasioned by the prospect of a leftist madman leading the opposition, true Tories like Nordlinger know that “to see [the Labour Party] go bolshevik, with the election of Jeremy Corbyn, would, in part, be a blow to us all.”
Knoedler gallery and former director quietly settle three claims over fake paintings
Laura Gilbert, The Art Newspaper
The ongoing saga of the Knoedler Gallery’s forgery case appears to be coming to a close. Despite a longstanding denial of wrongdoing, the former director Ann Freedman has discreetly settled three of the ten lawsuits brought against the gallery. For more background on the case, please read our own James Panero’s interview with Ann Freedman from August 2013 and Daniel Grant’s recent reflection on art and the law.
From our pages:
In memoriam: Robert Conquest, 1917-2015
Roger Kimball
This week we deviate from our usual print offering to share Roger Kimball’s tribute to his friend Robert Conquest, who died last week at the age of 98.