Kathryn, I agree that Ron Silver wasn’t a “conservative.” He was a liberal who couldn’t see why that required giving a profoundly illiberal enemy carte blanche to kill you. There should have been a few more like that in the wake of 9/11.
He was a marvelous actor, very real in everything he did, even Rhoda. (We once had an interesting exchange on why Rhoda wasn’t as good as The Mary Tyler Moore Show.) I knew him only from running into him at speeches and public events or being seated next to him at lunch at some confab or other – jihad, jihad, jihad. At one of those gatherings, he told me about certain Hollywood pals who no longer spoke to him. He said it without bitterness but you certainly got the sense of loss, of regret at his inability to combine the life he loved best with what he saw as his duty to speak the truth.
Ron was good company, and a fair, thoughtful and brave man. I’m always surprised at the number of letters I get from Hollywood types about America Alone and its themes. I wish a few more of them were willing to go public. Ron Silver did, and we owe him a debt of gratitude.