THE DEATH OF MIDGE DECTER, at the age of 94, marks the passing of a golden age of intellectual journalism. Having witnessed all the vicissitudes of the American century from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, and challenged progressive orthodoxies from Lyndon Johnson to Joe Biden, Midge was still battling to the last.
When I last met her and her husband, Norman Podhoretz, at our regular rendezvous — Antinucci, the Italian restaurant a few yards down the street from their apartment on the Upper East Side — Donald Trump was still in the White House. And on the merits of the 45th President, the grande dame and the grand old man of neoconservatism did not agree.
Norman saw the 2016 election as providential, with Trump taking a stand against the forces of evil, while Midge felt that the only miraculous thing about the Trump presidency was that he had not yet handed power back to the Democrats. They argued with their accustomed courteous repartee, before agreeing to disagree. Had they mellowed with age? Not likely. These two had been monstered by their opponents throughout the 66 years of their marriage.
It was true that Midge took no prisoners. When Russell Kirk, author of , who resented the number of Jews on the Right, commented: “And not seldom it has seemed
