Lew, I have been getting a great response to my recent LRC article on Murray Rothbard’s bete noir, the old CIA hawk William F. Buckley Jr. This little piece on WFB came from my over forty year fascination regarding the aviary sociology of the media elite and court intellectual academia in America. There have been some excellent historical books and articles over the years exploring the various ornithological enclaves, niches, cloisters, water holes, and retreats of these often elusive owls, hawks, mockingbirds, crows, buzzards, vultures, and other savage birds of prey. These predatory birds have had their defenders and detractors, their chroniclers and critics, their sycophants, supplicants, and scribes. But Murray’s impassioned account remains the seminal story of how these ideological migratory raptors came to roost and nest in the name of national security and as servitors of state power projection and empire.

The Best of Charles Burris