MIDGE DECTOR

Except in certain enclaves of absurdity and irrelevance, such as the universities and the Public Broadcasting System, virtually no one in the world believes any more that there is a system preferable to ours: more benign, more equitable, more productive. Another way many people liked to refer to what we were doing was waging "a battle of ideas." That battle, at least among serious people, is now over. We have won it.... [I]t is the sight of these stricken, homeless orphans of the Left that convinces us that our work in this Committee has been successfully concluded.

Except in certain enclaves of absurdity and irrelevance, such as the universities and the Public Broadcasting System, virtually no one in the world believes any more that there is a system preferable to ours: more benign, more equitable, more productive. Another way many people liked to refer to what we were doing was waging "a battle of ideas." That battle, at least among serious people, is now over. We have won it.... [I]t is the sight of these stricken, homeless orphans of the Left that convinces us that our work in this Committee has been successfully concluded.