A Legacy for Liberals

The Kennedy LegacyBy Theodore Sorensen Macmillan, $6.95 For those who are interested in observing the intellectual decrepititude of American liberalism, there is of course no shortage of materials. Books and articles which prove the point keep appearing all the time, and I therefore make no special claims for the volume presently under review. As an illustration of the fact that liberalism has little to say to us, however, I imagine it will serve as well as any.

If that beginning seems too harsh, I should add by way of further introduction that Sorensen seems to be an honest fellow, evenhanded in assessing the record as he understands it, ready, with the exception of the Bay of Pigs, to confess an obvious error here and there. The problem is that, in setting out to make liberal “pragmatism” theoretically intelligible in terms of itself, he has assumed an impossible burden. He has in consequence written an impossible book.

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M. Stanton Evans

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The Kennedy LegacyBy Theodore Sorensen Macmillan, $6.95 For those who are interested in observing the intellectual decrepititude of American liberalism, there is of course no shortage of materials. Books and articles which prove the point keep appearing all the time, and I therefore make no special claims for the volume presently under review. As an illustration of the fact that liberalism has little to say to us, however, I imagine it will serve as well as any.

If that beginning seems too harsh, I should add by way of further introduction that Sorensen seems to be an honest fellow, evenhanded in assessing the record as he understands it, ready, with the exception of the Bay of Pigs, to confess an obvious error here and there. The problem is that, in setting out to make liberal “pragmatism” theoretically intelligible in terms of itself, he has assumed an impossible burden. He has in consequence written an impossible book.