Like Rick, I attended the dinner yesterday evening in honor of James Piereson, executive director of the Olin Foundation. Jim spent a quarter of a century supporting causes that looked lost when he started—conservative think tanks, a conservative presence in the media, and programs at American universities in which free markets would be treated with at least a modicum of respect. Now those causes don’t look lost at all—and Jim himself is one reason why.
Modest, self-effacing, and gentle, Jim is also brilliant, determined, and principled. Like dozens of others—for that matter, like the country itself—I owe Jim my thanks.