This just in from faithful Corner reader Andrew Klavan (whom Mark Hemingway interviews here, and whose new novel, Empire of Lies, as I can attest, having read it in just a couple of sittings at the very beginning of the summer, is gripping and gorgeous):
The last part of the discussion [in the Uncommon Knowledge program with Victor Davis Hanson and Christopher Hitchens] reminded me of an exchange I had with my father-in-law, Thomas Flanagan, brilliant guy, old school academic lefty. [Flanagan, the author of a marvelous trilogy of novels about Ireland, the first of which is “The Year of the French,” taught at Berkeley.] Loved to get my goat and draw me into argument. So one day, we were having lunch at the Reform Club in London and, baiting me, he said, “Winston Churchill is the villain of my new novel.” And I immediately went off and said, “D**n it, Tom, Winston Churchill saved western civilization from destruction.” And Tom said, “Yes. But it’s the only good thing he ever did!”