Happy Birthday Senator Taft

Senator Robert A. Taft was born on this day in 1889. He was the last great champion of the old right and, in many ways, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is his successor. While Taft was not always consistent in his views, he generally favored a policy of free markets at home and skepticism toward foreign crusades and entanglements.

Taft would probably be dismissed as a starry-eyed peacenik, and as a member of the"hate America crowd," by many conservatives today for statements such as this one made in October 1946:

"Our whole attitude in the world, for a year after V.E. Day, including the use of the Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, seems to me a departure from the principles of fair and equal treatment which has made America respected throught the world before this second World War. Today, we are cordially hated in many countries." (quoted in Ronald Radosh, Prophets on the Right: Profiles of Conservative Critics of American Globalism).