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Decter and Podhoretz

the breakfast table
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from: Midge Decter

Re: Honor and Glory and Breakfast

Posted Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999, at 11:31 AM ET

It's always possible, of course, to read too much into things like Academy Awards. But on the other hand, I do think that the country is hungering for a return to the high morale of World War II days. This can be seen not only in movies but in books as well. Witness, for instance, Tom Brokaw's huge bestseller in which he calls the Americans who fought in World War II the greatest of all generations. In fact, I myself recently wrote an article in Commentary magazine about the longing of boys today to reach for the honor and glory this society has been denying to young men ever since it lionized the generation that refused to fight in Vietnam. So the Journal may well have a point. But what do you make of the fact that two of the other movies nominated were Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth?

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Midge Decter

Re: Honor and Glory and Breakfast

Posted Thursday, Feb. 11, 1999, at 11:31 AM ET
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Midge Decter is an essayist and social critic who publishes in a variety of magazines and appears most frequently in Commentary. Norman Podhoretz is editor at large of Commentary magazine and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. His latest book, Ex-Friends, was published this month.
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