Jeanne Kirkpatrick memorial

"When you're running down my country, you're walkin' on the fightin' side of me." Merle Haggard

When I saw a spate of memorial services for Jeanne Kirkpatrick yesterday, I had a moment of panic since I had eulogized her last year.  Not that I wouldn't love to have been wrong, but .. you know.  Anyway, it turns out that the family was just now holding a memorial service, which was a good reason to talk about the great lady once again.  Here's an anecdote I hadn't heard before. One wintry afternoon in 1980, or so the story goes, a gaggle of six conservative Democrats went to see President Carter in the White House to talk about Iran. The 1979 revolution there had swept away America’s ally, the Shah who allowed women to go college and wear bell-bottom blue jeans in pulsing discos, and washed in a dour, gray-bearded ayatollah who dispatched whip-wielding religious police to terrorize the people and looked on with gator-delight while militants seized the U.S. embassy and held nearly four-score American diplomats hostage. Blindfolded, beaten, and told that they were going to be murdered, 52 of these diplomats would remain captives for 444 days. After meeting with President Carter, the six Democrats stepped out into an icy White House driveway. Stunned by either the sunlight or the president, the Democrats did not immediately respond when the press asked them about their meeting. Then, Jeane Kirkpatrick stepped forward. I will tell you what I learned from the president, she said, “I am going to work for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.”  - Richard Miniter, "Mourning in America"