John T. Reed’s news blog

Today’s terror attacks are further evidence of what I recently said. I don’t understand the Middle East and I don’t think anyone does, even those who were born and raised there.  As part of his impersonation of a world leader, Putin intervened in a civil war in Syria. When my Unelected President is asked about our getting involved in Syria in my novel of that name, he rejects the idea out of hand. The novel is set in the period January through April, 2013. If I write a sequel, getting into the period where Putin decided to prop up Syria,...

John Glenn’s funeral is today. People not aware of the wider world in 1962 probably wonder what the big deal was. Yes, he was an astronaut, but he was only the third American in space. Why would he be more famous than the first two? True, it was the first orbital flight, but no such difference in flight duration was ever such a big deal before or after. .You had to be there. Those of us who were cannot articulate the difference between John Glenn and the first man in space Alan Shepard or the first man on the moon...

I was taken aback to see Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard on Fox News’s Brett Bair panel with Laura Ingram and Charles Krauthammer Thursday. Given that he is a regular, why would that be? Last Sunday through Wednesday, he was with about 170 of us on the Weekly Standard post-election cruise. Steve is very good about learning everyone’s name and welcoming one-on-one conversations. So by Thursday, it was “Hey, Jack” and “Hi, Steve” around the elevators and at the meetings. Then, suddenly within hours of having spoken to him, I see him on Fox. He flew back to DC...

I was taken aback to see Steve Hayes of the Weekly Standard on Fox News’s Brett Bair panel with Laura Ingram and Charles Krauthammer Thursday. Given that he is a regular, why would that be?   Last Sunday through Wednesday, he was with about 170 of us on the Weekly Standard post-election cruise. Steve is very good about learning everyone’s name and welcoming one-on-one conversations.   So by Thursday, it was “Hey, Jack” and “Hi, Steve” around the elevators and at the meetings. Then, suddenly within hours of having spoken to him, I see him on Fox. He flew back...

Today, I attended a Weekly Standard panel discussion about whether the Trump election signals a new era or is just a one-off event. I think he is the second president of a new era that began with our electing a movie actor president: Ronald Reagan. There was a rather straightforward formula for becoming president before Reagan: graduate from an Ivy League college, go abroad to fight in a war as a junior officer, serve in the House of Representatives, then as governor or senator, then go straight to the presidency or via the vice presidency. In other words, a little...