I knew D. Keith Mano long before I met him. My family first subscribed to National Review in 1969. Mano’s regular column, “The Gimlet Eye,” appeared in 1972. His mandate, described by WFB, was “to go about seeking strange and remarkable things.” This he did, for 17 years, writing a thousand words in every issue — two or three columns in a row, punctuated by a book review.
He was, I would argue, the best writer to appear regularly in NR. WFB at his best was unbeatable, but his ubiquity pulled at his batting average. James J. Kilpatrick’s presidential-campaign pieces, beautiful and wise, came and went like comets. Garry Wills and Florence King (this must be the first sentence in history to include them both) shone. But for sustained energy, issue after issue, Mano won the gold.
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