Imaginable and Unimaginable, &c.

On John Lennon, Nicolás Maduro, Americanism, Yale, the English language, and more

Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Moscow on May 7, 2025 (Wikimedia)

When I saw this news, I thought, “Well, one more reason to dislike that song.” The song in question is John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Bill Buckley issued a famous broadside against it in 1990.

That recent news: “Venezuela’s Maduro sings John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ as he talks about U.S. tensions.”

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I have noticed something over the years (and have pointed it out in more than one column): There are people who detest Lincoln. And people who detest Churchill. And they tend to be the same people.

Now, in an article for Bloomberg, Adrian Wooldridge has made another point: Left and Right detest Churchill, and in the same ways. The title of his article: “Churchill Is the Epitome of Horseshoe Politics.”

Writes Wooldridge,

The U.S. ultra-Right has recently launched a fusillade of criticisms of Churchill as a warmonger, bigot, and, horror, Zionist, criticisms that repeat—sometimes word for word—criticisms that have long been popular on the far left and, sadly, the broader academic left. The shock jocks and the radical professors are speaking with one voice.

That final sentence is ... a winner.

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In my business, you sometimes intend to write an article—and believe you should write an article—and then, before you do it, someone comes along and writes that article—relieving you of the responsibility.

My friend Jonah Goldberg has written an article about pardons—the presidential pardon power—that says exactly what I would have hoped to say, and says it very well.

Let me say a little more, here and now.

I think there ought to be a presidential pardon power. But if it is subject to abuse the way President Trump has abused it—pardoning basically every convicted criminal who ever said a flattering word about him, or enriched him—the power should be taken away altogether.

Back in 2002, I wrote a column commenting on President Bush’s pardons. (That’d be Bush 43.) I contrasted those pardons with the ones issued by President Clinton, especially in the last hours of his presidency.

Bush pardoned a man who had made bootleg whiskey. And a Jehovah’s Witness who had refused to be drafted. And a man who had moved back the odometer in his car.

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About Trump and Saudi Arabia—and Trump and dictators generally—I have written for ten years. (I wrote a big piece near the end of his first term, here.) I can hardly make my fingers type on the subject anymore. Our country is disgraced, I believe.

His recent performance with Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office was one of the most sickening things I have ever seen in public affairs. Watch it here, if you can stomach it.

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Every day, Ukrainians exhibit quiet heroism—heroism amid barbaric assault. Let me draw your attention to this news item: “160 Ukrainian energy workers have been killed as Russia pummels the power system.”

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When it comes to the murdered and maimed, it’s important to know names and faces—at least some of them. Otherwise, it’s all too abstract ...

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I so appreciated what Condoleezza Rice said:

The United States of America is not united by ethnicity, nationality, or religion. We are united by a creed—a belief that it doesn’t matter where you came from, it matters where you are going.

So too, I appreciated what Gordon S. Wood, the historian, said:

To be an American is not to be someone, but to believe in something. That is why we are at heart a credo nation, and that is why the 250th anniversary of the Declaration next year is so important.

***

I see here that Jane Pauley has received a medal for lifetime achievement in journalism. Wish to tell you a story.

It was 20, 25 years ago at the Buckleys’. I was sitting next to Garry Trudeau, the cartoonist, who is Jane Pauley’s husband. I said, “You know, so many of us had such a wicked crush on her.” He smiled and said, “I’ll tell her that. She’s feeling rather old these days.” I said, “She’ll never be old to us.”

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I went up to New Haven, for an event at Yale. How do you pronounce the name of that town? I say “New Haven.” For two hours, on the train from New York, I heard the conductor say, “Train to New Haven.”

Yale is a beautiful campus. And fall may be its best season.

A question for you: Does New Haven qualify as New England? Well, I recall what C. Vann Woodward used to say. Woodward, you remember, was a leading historian of the American South. He himself was a southerner. And he taught at Yale for many years.

He referred to Connecticut as “the Deep North.”

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I have had, or at least seen, drinks with umbrellas in them. But, until lunching at New Haven’s The Place 2 Be, I had never had, or seen, a drink with a rubber ducky in it:

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Let’s have a little language. An article about Lane Kiffin, the football coach, says, “He hasn’t drank in nearly five years, rarely eats red meat, never eats bread, works out every single morning ...”

Oh, geez. He last drank in 2020. He hasn’t drunk in five years.

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There is beauty in music, of course. Beauty is an essential ingredient! But there is unbeauty too—though, let’s admit, beauty is often in the eye, or ear, of the beholder, or listener.

I have written an essay on this subject for Plough Quarterly. See what you think, here.

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Two groups—Principles First and the Society for the Rule of Law—are teaming for a dinner in San Francisco on December 4. I am pleased to join Gregg Nunziata in a discussion. Be there or be square. (I myself will be both there and, as usual, square.)

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Some years ago, I dedicated a book as follows: “To David Pryce-Jones, an exemplary thinker, writer, and friend.” He was born in Vienna in 1936—two years before the Anschluss. He survived the war, and the Holocaust, and led a rich, industrious life. He passed away earlier this week. I wrote a little article about him last summer (here). My gratitude for DPJ is everlasting.