You have to understand, Brent Bozell and I have known each other for 40 years.
We've socialized together, laughed together butted heads, two of our sons were best friends and never along the way betrayed our conservative principles.
We also cried together on at least one occasion. Our wives are good friends.
We both had high conservative principles, but his pedigree was a little more refined.
My father and mother were deeply involved in the early days of the Conservative Party of New York as foot soldiers, but Brent's father was one of the seminal writers and thinkers in the early days of the conservative movement and even ghosted Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative."
His father was also the Washington editor of National Review with Brent's uncle, the one and only William F. Buckley, a swashbuckling renaissance man.
His mother, Patricia Buckley Bozell, was herself a great editor and writer.
So when Brent asked me to read his new semi-autobiographical book, "Stops Along the Way," I was already prepared to like it.
I read and guess what? I could not put it down.
It was that much fun. But it was more that that. It was also about all those things that liberals hate: love, family, religion, education, principles, even if his family also sounded like the road crew for the Grateful Dead.
We share a lot in common.
Brent takes his principles very seriously. He never takes himself too seriously.
I've always admired him, especially after I found out he is contemptuous of the semi pro football team formerly known as the Washington Redskins.
Naturally, we regard the current occupant of the Oval Office the lowest regard possible.
My brother and I also played night football although my family did not wear coats and ties for dinner. But we had great dinner conversation.
Bozell mentions the head of the old NCPAC often, Terry Dolan.
Dolan passed away, many years ago. Terry was a genius. Terry was witty and could be hysterical. Terry was our friend. And Terry was gay.
These days, it's not much of an issue, but in 1984 it was a huge issue.
Funny thing is it was never a problem as far as we were concerned.
It was with liberals like Ellen Hume of The Wall Street Journal.
Hypocrites. Happily, she has not been with the Journal for quite some time.
Bozell's book is chronological, which is nice. I can't stand jumping around like some bad Hollywood movie. There is a paragraph describing life in Spain where he spent his formative years with his family which reads like warm honey.
"Each day was crowned by a delicious three-course lunch at the school or any one of the innumerable restaurants, after which it was time for the town's collective siesta." It goes on from there and you can feel yourself in the small town, just enjoying life on this planet.
And then there is this: "To the muggy, horsefly-bit days and crisp, clear evening of summer." There are stories of full body contact croquet with his brothers and sisters. There are stories of growing up in a old, ramshackle large house magically named Montejurra, where roofs leaked and basements spooky and worthy of exploring for any young child.
It was a Tom Sawyer-like upbringing with maximum freedom and maximum love and maximum horseplay. Sorry leftists, barnyard animals sometimes die and children are to be loved, not aborted.
It is the way of the world.
In the last few pages, he deals with the very serious and dangerous issue of "cancel culture." I won't spoil it for the reader but suffice to say, he is just as alarmed as all rational people about the "woke-joke" movement in America.
He also doesn't mention Bill Buckley much and that is a small disappointment, but there is so much to celebrate in this book.
We have so much to be sad about. We're all sad that Biden and his "Dr. Community College" spouse are in the White House.
My daughter had her for a teacher at Nova University.
She tells me Mrs. Biden was not up to par as an instructor.
We are sad to the point of suicide that Jen Psaki relentlessly covers for Biden.
We are sad about his economy, we are sad that global leaders are routinely kicking sand in face the face of our current president.
We are sad at Biden's inflation, cowardly abandonment of our fellow Americans in Afghanistan and all the other maladies visited upon us by his failures.
We need a bit of joy in this, the greatest season of all.
Liberals of course hate the greatest story ever told. We love it. We love Him.
We love a book named "A Christmas Carol," by Charles Dickens.
We love a movie about a "Wonderful Life," with Jimmy Stewart.
And you will love a fun and funny little book named "Stops Along the Way."
Read it and forget if, even for just a few hours, that a "sad sack" now occupies the White House.
Below are some great quotes to remember during these times:
"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public."
—Winston Churchill
All Fools have still an Itching to deride, And fain wou'd be upon the Laughing Side; If Maevius Scribble in Apollo's spight; There are, who judge still worse than he can write.
—Alexander Pope
"'Don't teach my boy poetry,'an English mother recently wrote the Provost of Harrow. 'Don't teach my boy poetry; he is going to stand for Parliament.'Well, perhaps she was right — but if more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place to live on this 19th day of February, 1957."
—John F. Kennedy
"Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon."
—Raymond Chandler
"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."
—Benjamin Franklin
Craig Shirley is a Ronald Reagan biographer, presidential historian, and four-time best-selling author. His most recent book is ''Mary Ball Washington,''a definitive biography of George Washington's mother. Read Craig Shirley's Reports — More Here.
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