Conservatism

Charlton Heston, the Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing larger-than-life figures including Moses, Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson and went on to become an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of conservative causes, has died. He was 84. Heston died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home, said family spokesman Bill Powers. In 2002, he had been diagnosed with symptoms similar to those of Alzheimer's disease.

Henry Kissinger reached the end of his speech. His voice cracked and tears rimmed his eyes as he addressed the 2,000 people who sat before him, quiet. William F. Buckley Jr., he said, "was a noble and valiant man who was truly touched by the grace of God." Kissinger eulogized the progenitor of the modern conservative movement Friday at the vast St. Patrick's Cathedral in a ceremony marked more by erudition and laughter than tears.

William F. Buckley Jr., the columnist, novelist, television talk show host and tireless intellectual who founded the modern conservative movement and was its articulate voice for nearly six decades, died Wednesday. He was 82. Buckley, who had been ill with emphysema, died while at work in his study in Stamford, Conn., according to Richard Lowry, the editor of National Review, the magazine Buckley founded in 1955.

NEW YORK -- Mary Matalin, conservative pundit and adviser to former presidential candidate Fred Thompson, has attacked Sen. John McCain for his stances on taxes and immigration and for the "madness" of jumping on "the pseudo-religious global-warming bandwagon." Matalin is also head of the conservative Threshold Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts. The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.

Campaigning as the only true conservative running for president, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson came to one of the most Republican towns in Republican-dominated Orange County on Saturday to deliver crowd-pleasing talk of slashing taxes and securing U.S. borders. The event was kicked off by state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), a favorite among the party's conservative activists.

In 1964, when Congress outlawed discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, gender or national origin, the idea of adding sexual orientation to the litany of improper motives was not so much unpopular as unthinkable. Fortunately, times have changed. Thanks in large part to trailblazing gay activists, public opinion has evolved to the extent that a ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation passed the House last week by a vote of 235 to 184.

Jan Wolkers, 81, a Dutch author and sculptor whose sex-charged books helped shake off the shackles of postwar conservatism in the Netherlands, died Friday at his home on the North Sea island of Texel, his publisher De Bezige Bij announced. Considered one of the most important postwar Dutch writers, Wolkers won but declined the country's highest literary honors.

Clarence Thomas grew up poor and black in the segregated South. By the time he went to college and law school in New England, he was a self-described "black radical." But by his mid-30s, he had transformed himself into one of the nation's most prominent black conservatives and was on the path that would lead him to the Supreme Court.