Sincere in conviction but historically selective in the traditions he invokes.
The former vice president outlines core principles of conservatism for America.
Drawing from Barry Goldwater’s seminal 1960 manifesto The Conscience of a Conservative, widely credited with igniting the American conservative movement and laying the intellectual groundwork for Ronald Reagan’s triumph in 1980, Pence aims to reignite those founding principles, holding both men as his conservative ideals. “We need a new articulation of what conservatives believe,” he writes. “We need a twenty-first-century version of The Conscience of a Conservative.” He enumerates several core principles, each examined in subsequent chapters, from God-given rights and the sanctity of human life to economic freedom, low taxes, and the national debt to standing with America’s allies, most especially Israel, and the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. Throughout, Pence draws a sharp distinction between these beliefs and the populist right, exemplified by President Trump, particularly in his second term, which Pence argues is rooted in opinion polls and popularity rather than conservative doctrine—a tendency he also equates with the progressive left. He nonetheless stands by his first-term record: “Although things did not end well between us, I will always be proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration and believe Goldwater and Reagan would be too.” For all his earnestness, Pence’s prose is remarkably soulless, offering little personal reflection. Most glaring is his subdued treatment of Jan. 6, 2021; while he acknowledges the day as a dark moment, the destructive force of the insurrection and Trump’s subsequent pardoning of participants go largely unexamined. What Pence never confronts is that his ideological touchstones held a far more libertarian conservatism than his own distinctly religious vision. After surviving an assassination attempt, Reagan lobbied Congress to pass both the Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban. Goldwater, after leaving the Senate, embraced gay rights, abortion rights, and environmental causes and declared that religion had no place in public policy—convictions directly at odds with Pence’s own.
Sincere in conviction but historically selective in the traditions he invokes.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781546011637
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Center Street/Hachette
Review Posted Online: yesterday
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An essential account of a chaotic administration that, Woodward makes painfully clear, is incapable of governing.
That thing in the air that is deadlier than even your “strenuous flus”? Trump knew—and did nothing about it.
The big news from veteran reporter Woodward’s follow-up to Fear has been widely reported: Trump was fully aware at the beginning of 2020 that a pandemic loomed and chose to downplay it, causing an untold number of deaths and crippling the economy. His excuse that he didn’t want to cause a panic doesn’t fly given that he trades in fear and division. The underlying news, however, is that Trump participated in this book, unlike in the first, convinced by Lindsey Graham that Woodward would give him a fair shake. Seventeen interviews with the sitting president inform this book, as well as extensive digging that yields not so much news as confirmation: Trump has survived his ineptitude because the majority of Congressional Republicans go along with the madness because they “had made a political survival decision” to do so—and surrendered their party to him. The narrative often requires reading between the lines. Graham, though a byword for toadyism, often reins Trump in; Jared Kushner emerges as the real power in the West Wing, “highly competent but often shockingly misguided in his assessments”; Trump admires tyrants, longs for their unbridled power, resents the law and those who enforce it, and is quick to betray even his closest advisers; and, of course, Trump is beholden to Putin. Trump occasionally emerges as modestly self-aware, but throughout the narrative, he is in a rage. Though he participated, he said that he suspected this to be “a lousy book.” It’s not—though readers may wish Woodward had aired some of this information earlier, when more could have been done to stem the pandemic. When promoting Fear, the author was asked for his assessment of Trump. His reply: “Let’s hope to God we don’t have a crisis.” Multiple crises later, Woodward concludes, as many observers have, “Trump is the wrong man for the job.”
An essential account of a chaotic administration that, Woodward makes painfully clear, is incapable of governing.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982131-73-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
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