50 years ago today: "The great figure who embodied man's will to resist tyranny passed into history... He was 90 years old."

"The world had been watching and waiting since Jan. 15, when it was announced that Sir Winston had suffered a stroke. The last authentic giant of world politics in the 20th century was going down." Wrote Anthony Lewis in the NYT.

For nine days the struggle went on. Medical experts said that only phenomenal tenacity and spirit of life could enable a man of 90 to hold off death so long in these circumstances.

But then those were the qualities that had made Winston Churchill a historical figure in his lifetime. His pluck in rallying Britain to victory in World War II saved not only this country but, in all likelihood, free nations everywhere.... With almost all of Europe under or about to fall under the Nazi jackboot, it was Sir Winston who flung this challenge at the enemy:

"We shall not flag, or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

L.A. Times Op-ed: "'Innocence of Muslims' doesn't meet free-speech test."

"U.S. 1st Amendment rights distinguish between speech that is simply offensive and speech deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk," according to Sarah Chayes, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and resident associate at the Carnegie Endowment.

She gets the famous 1st Amendment expert Anthony Lewis to agree with her shocking, blandly stated view. We're told he said: "Based on my understanding of the events... I think this meets the imminence standard." Chayes paraphrases Lewis as saying "words don't have to urge people to commit violence in order to be subject to limits," and then directly quotes him: "If the result is violence, and that violence was intended, then it meets the standard."

I call on Lewis to repudiate Chayes's use of his words. He can't possibly agree with her opinion, can he? There's a way an interviewer can lead a person along until he gives her the quotes that she wants. I note that Lewis is elderly (85). This appropriation of his reputation is embarrassing for him. But if he actually agrees and wants to put that out there: Make it clear. (And present. And dangerous.)

Why is Anthony Lewis so in love with Barry Friedman's book?

Here's Anthony Lewis:

We think of the Supreme Court’s constitutional decisions as lofty, lonely, unchallengeable. But in truth they are part of a dialogue with public opinion and political leadership—and in the long run the Court does not stray far from the public. That is the convincing conclusion of Barry Friedman’s stunning, fascinating history.

Here's a review of Friedman's book in The New Republic:

In Friedman’s assessment, no journalist was more closely attuned to the sentiments of ordinary Americans in the latter half of the twentieth century than Anthony Lewis of The New York Times. “In a probing 1962 feature story,” Friedman writes, “Lewis explained that the Supreme Court’s rapid development of the law in the areas of race relations, legislative apportionment, and the rights of criminal suspects reflected ‘a demand of the national conscience.’” Unburdened by data, Lewis unabashedly identified national trends that just happened to coincide perfectly with the Warren Court’s jurisprudence. Lewis explained the Court’s decision in Brown as follows: “Once again no complicated motive need be sought. The Supreme Court was reflecting a national moral consensus on segregation--perhaps anticipating a feeling that had not yet fully taken shape.”

This assertion is historically inaccurate. A great deal more opposition and ambivalence greeted Brown than is revealed by such a tale of moral triumph. But Friedman’s admiration for Lewis knows no bounds. “Though critics complained constantly that the Warren Court was running ahead of the crowd,” he remarks, “at least one perceptive observer understood that the Court did what it did because the public supported these outcomes and no other organ of government would provide them. That was Anthony Lewis.” In extolling Lewis’s coverage of Bickel’s Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures at Harvard Law School, Friedman gushes: “Ultimately, it was Anthony Lewis who proved the Court’s most perceptive spectator.”