Irreplaceable Irving

Irreplaceable Irving

Irving Kristol, who passed away last week at the age of 89, was like everyone's favorite uncle -- if the uncle were a transformative intellectual of empyrean stature. He was both a warm and approachable human being and a penetrating social critic. He was, in a very American way, a practical man, and his approach to ideas was always firmly and refreshingly reality-based.

Irving Kristol was born in New York in 1920, so it was inevitable that he would become, for a short time at least, a socialist. But...