As a politician, I vowed not to attack my opponents. Where’s that ethos now?
Preview:
If America has any better writers than Cormac McCarthy, I haven’t found them.
McCarthy hasn’t written a political novel — goodness knows we don’t need any more — but indirectly, almost allegorically, maybe he has.
In his dark masterpiece “No Country for Old Men,” the protagonist is a longtime county sheriff in south Texas who watches what has always been a rough-and-tumble environment descend rather suddenly into levels of violence and brutality that even that weathered veteran cannot cope with, or even comprehend. Even though “bein’ sheriff was one of the best jobs you could have and bein’ a ex-sheriff was one of the worst,” by the book’s end, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell is ready to quit.
Originally published: November 9, 2018
Author: Mitch Daniels
Position: President
Institution: Purdue University
Published by: The Washington Post