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Boychuk and Buskirk Cover the Waterfront—and Get the Led Out

Not Jimmy Page

American Greatness Managing Editor Ben Boychuk joined Publisher Chris Buskirk to discuss the anniversary of the 2016 presidential election, sky screamers, and Election Day predictions in Virginia. Then Seth Leibsohn showed up . . .

Chris Buskirk: I am Chris Buskirk and he is Seth Leibsohn. This is the Seth and Chris show. Tomorrow is a big day in the history of this very, very, great country of ours. A country we want to make great again. Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of last year’s election, of the election of Donald Trump. A lot people were surprised. I was not. Seth was not. There were people who got this right. Not everyone and we are going to have a little fun today, tomorrow and the kick off to the festivities are the fact that I am joined by my friend, my colleague at American Greatness, Ben Boychuk. Ben, how are you?

Ben Boychuk: I’m great. I’m-

Buskirk: Are you great again?

Boychuk: I’m great again. I’m actually … you know what I’ve been … I come on this show reluctantly, because I’m trying to rest my voice for all screaming that … actually, I’m not going to be doing any screaming tomorrow. What are you kidding? No, I’m not going to be. I’ll be watching the screamers and listening to the screamers as they show at the sky in a futile effort to undo the past.

Buskirk: Do you have pink hat or are they still doing the pink hat thing? I can’t keep up.

Boychuk: Weather is starting to turn. It’s getting a little chilly.

Buskirk: That’s a good point. You’re arguing the pink hats maybe just took a hiatus for the summer.

Boychuk: I think that’s right, yeah. I think that’s correct. I think they’ll be probably coming out in droves, because I just think a lot of folks … I hope we see it tomorrow. I hope it’s not going to be bust like this Antifa thing over the weekend. We were supposed to have a revolution over the weekend and nobody showed up.

Buskirk: What happens if you have a revolution and nobody shows? It’s like the sound of one hand clapping.

Boychuk: Right, so, I’m hoping these screamers come through for us tomorrow, because I can’t wait.

Buskirk: Explain that. I know what you’re talking about, a lot of people maybe don’t. This is a thing with resistance, this group with the screaming.

Boychuk: This is a thing. I wrote my Sacramento Bee column about it. It appeared at sacbee.com on Friday and we link to it from amgreatness.com. All over the country tomorrow on the anniversary of the election, the surprise, not for you and Seth, but for a lot of folks, the surprise outcome of the election with Donald Trump winning, people across the country from Boston maybe to New York to L.A., San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, they’re all going to go outside. They’re going to look up at the sky and they’re going to scream helplessly as a symbol of protest.

Buskirk: Yeah. Do it. “Yeah, guys, we’re going to do it.” I would awesome that was what they had these meetings to decide things. I would awesome that was the sound of affirmation. “Yeah Man, we’re going do it.”

Boychuk: I just think it’s wonderful and even one of the organizers of the Boston event, which I think is not happening, because reasons beyond their control.

Buskirk: Lack of interest?

Boychuk: No, I think there was some interest. That was the way this was sort of covered last week was all these various local papers were looking at the event’s pages on Facebook and looking at the people who would say, “Well, yeah, we’re thinking about going or we’re going to go.” There were several thousand people, which I can believe that, but one of the organizers, the Boston organizers said essentially, “We know this is an exercise in futility, but maybe it’ll help people feel better and maybe something optimistic will come of it.”

Buskirk: OK, yeah, maybe and maybe they’ll all win the Powerball tomorrow.

Boychuk: Boy, I would-

Buskirk: Seems equally likely.

Boychuk: Yeah, that seems about right and I think … what I like about it, other than the spectacle of it, I love political street theater, what I like about is that it really is kind of a nice culmination of the effectiveness of the so called resistance.

Buskirk: Yeah, shouting at the sky.

Boychuk: Shouting at the sky. Beyond that though, in terms of political victories, it’s been kind of a mixed bag. There have been a lot of lawsuits from places like my home state of California to stop some of President Trump’s policies. Say that five times fast, but in terms of real successes, I don’t know. I think screaming at the sky might be one of their high water marks.

Buskirk: What do you think, they do have a chance for one success in Virginia. Do you have a feel for that race at all? I know it’s a tough one.

Boychuk: That is a tough and I’ve sort of been looking at it off and on and this is one of those stories where you’re not so sure about the polls, just like last year.

Buskirk: Right.

Boychuk: We looked at the polls last year. I felt last year that there was a really significant, strong, sort of “shy Trump” phenomenon going on where a lot of voters just didn’t want to say they were going to vote for him. This is a little bit different, because Ed Gillespie, the Republican, has a long reputation as an establishment Republican and his opponent, the Democrat, Nathan.

Buskirk: Northam, right?

Boychuk: Northam.

Buskirk: Northam, yeah.

Boychuk: Northam, sorry.

Buskirk: Right, Northam.

Boychuk: Ralph Northam has … he’s also … I mean, he’s lieutenant governor of the state, sort of a mushy moderate type and Gillespie wasn’t really getting much headway until he kind of pivoted a little bit and started echoing some of the populist-type of messaging that the president has succeeded with. It’s one of those races where it’s super close in what is a purple, sort leaning blue state. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kind of squeaked by, just because from everything I understand that-

Buskirk: Which he?

Boychuk: I’m sorry, Gillespie.  [Editor’s note: Well, so much for that!]

Buskirk: Gillespie, yeah, maybe.

Boychuk: Yeah, just because you know the Democrat, the last few days, he’s being hit from the Left, because he’s not sort of I guess, liberal enough for them in that state and some his ads have kind of backfired. An independent group ad featuring a truck with a Confederate flag and a Gillespie sticker trying to run down women and minorities and that kind of blew up in their face.

Buskirk: Yeah, I mean, who green lights these ads? I mean, they’ve got to be … I guess they’re the sort of people who will be outside tomorrow yelling at the sky, but I look at the ads like that one when things like this happen and I always think the same thing. There was a team of people who put this together. They had all their ideas that they were working. This is the one that rose to the top and that everybody affirmed and said, “You know what? Yeah, that’s the idea. We’re going to run with it.”

Boychuk: The hilarious thing about that and one of the reasons why it’s blown up in Northam’s face is that … you know, he came out and because this became a controversial thing last week and he said, “Well, my campaign had nothing to do it.” The campaign’s filing showed that it was coordinated. It was a coordinated ad. Of course, he had something to do with it. It would serve him right for a being a mealy-mouth weasel.

The other I heard by the way, there’s seems to be a sort of even larger than normal number of absentee ballots coming in there, which the old political wisdom about absentee ballots was they tend to be more from Republicans than from Democrats. That might make a difference for Gillespie.

Buskirk: Is that still true?

Boychuk: It’s still true in places. Although, I think that’s changed a little bit, it still actually remains true to some extent even here in California, but the problem is of course, Republicans in California only have something like 27 percent registration anymore. The bottom line turn out at the polls still makes a big difference too.

Buskirk: Yeah.

Boychuk: That was something that I had noticed. I kind of wanted to keep my eye on it. I see was seeing a couple of stories about that. That they were getting more absentee ballots than usual, which seems a little bit interesting.

Buskirk: Interesting, yeah. The polls close there in 45 minutes. They close at 7:00 Eastern. Just have to watch that. My take on that race, Ben, is that if the Democrats win, it’s kind of dog-bites-man. If Gillespie, it’s man-bites-dog a little bit, right? The Democrats should win that race. This is a purple, almost a blue state at this point. If they don’t win in an environment that they keep arguing is all about resistance to Trump, when are they going to win?

Boychuk: That’s right and you know, what I love about this, too, is the way the media has kind of set the narrative. “This is Virginia now.” We’ve had … how many of these special elections have we had this year that were supposed to a referendum on Trump?

Buskirk: They haven’t won any of them.

Boychuk: They haven’t won any of them and so, we’ll see how this one goes. Of course, the other thing about those, those were congressional races. They had unique, local political dynamics, very hard to have national implications on what are fundamentally local races.

Buskirk: Yeah.

Boychuk: This will be interesting to see.

Buskirk: Yeah, no, we’ll be watching that one. I think it’s an important race. It’s not everything, of course. I think some of these Congressional races have been more important, but nonetheless, this is one we’ll want to keep an eye. Ben, we’re going to run to a break. When we come back, I’ve got something from last year. We’re going to play a little game. We’ll see if you can pick who wrote some things.

Boychuk: OK.

Buskirk: Yeah, right. This will be fun. We’ll be right back with more of the Seth and Chris show.

We’re getting the Led out Ben?

Boychuk: Always, that’s what I love about … you know, that’s really the only reason why I do this show, Chris is because I get to … you know.

Buskirk: You can get the Led out.

Boychuk: I can get the Led out.

Buskirk: When Seth’s not here.

Boychuk: Right.

Buskirk: Then, we can get the Led out.

Boychuk: Yeah, and the streak’s unbroken.

Buskirk: Right, I know.

Boychuk: That guy, every-

Buskirk: I know. He actually is supposed to be here in nine minutes, but we shall see.

Boychuk: We’ll see how that goes. Every single time, man, every single time, “Hello, Seth.” I wish him well. It’s fine.

Buskirk: I’m going to ask you a question that I’m pretty sure you can answer that I know Seth can’t. That guitar solo we were just listening to, it’s from a little song you may have heard of. Are you familiar with the name of it?

Boychuk: “Stairway to Heaven”?

Buskirk: Yeah, right, right.

Boychuk: I was trying to decide if I should make a joke, but no. Yeah, “Stairway to Heaven,” man. Come on.

Buskirk: Right, exactly, the greatest rock n’ roll song of all time, “Stairway to Heaven.”

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: Right, I mean, even if you don’t think it’s the greatest, which I do, you at least know it’s in that pantheon, right? You know it’s in the discussion.

Boychuk: By the greatest rock guitarist, Eric Clapton.

Buskirk: Yeah, right. Yeah, no, if I ask Seth that question, 10 times out of 10, he would not get that answer.

Boychuk: Fantastic.

Buskirk: I know.

Boychuk: That’s why we love him.

Buskirk: I know, right.

Boychuk: One of the many reasons.

Buskirk: The things that we take for granted being our age, something that you know, Seth does not know those things, but if you want to know who was on the liner notes of … what’s a great 70’s soft rock classic? A Loggins and Messina record, he will know that. Who played the second trombone on a Loggins and Messina song? Seth will definitely know that and the person’s biography.

Boychuk: Someone’s got to do it.

Buskirk: Somebody does have to know these things. Seth Leibsohn is on the phone? He’s here.

Boychuk: We’re in trouble now.

Seth Leibsohn: You guys are slandering . . .

Buskirk: Hold on a second. I didn’t know that this was being broadcast out over the air waves.

Seth Leibsohn: You guys are slandering and libeling me. What song is that from?

Buskirk: Stairway to Heaven.

Seth Leibsohn: Okay, or Simon and Garfunkel.

Buskirk: You know who played the second trombone on the Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over the River Kwai?

Seth Leibsohn: Bridge Over the … yeah, the Troubled Bridge Over-

Buskirk: The Troubled Bridge Over the River Kwai or whatever.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah, Bill Watrous.

Buskirk: Right, see? I knew you would know.

Boychuk: That is amazing.

Buskirk: Seth, we’re starting to give … we, I say that out of solidarity with you, Seth. We’re starting to give poor Ben a complex, because you’re never here when he’s on the show.

Seth Leibsohn: You think I don’t do this deliberately?

Buskirk: I think everybody knows you do.

Boychuk: Yeah, I think you’ve been ducking me for months, Leibsohn.

Leibsohn: Hey, Ben, congratulations on what you’ve been up to there, Brother.

Boychuk: Thank you, we’re having a good run. We’re doing pretty well I think at American Greatness.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah, and have you discussed the other anniversary today?

Buskirk: What’s the other one?

Seth Leibsohn: Since it’s November, it’s the October revolution.

Boychuk: Oh.

Buskirk: Boy, are we opening that can of worms again?

Seth Leibsohn: Based on the three Gregorian true calendar, it’s the October revolution is celebrated on November 7th.

Speaker: Seth, you were right again.

Buskirk: I’m all … that is something that is going out of the bumper too. That’s going right off the board. Yeah, I’m all Julian. I’m all about the Julian calendar. I celebrate my October revolution in … well, predictably, October.

Seth Leibsohn: And that’s why you were the only one there commemorating.

Buskirk: I had plenty of elbow room. It was fantastic. I got a seat. I didn’t have to rush. The bathroom’s were fine. There were no lines. Seth, are you coming in?

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah, I’m on my way. I’m just stuck in traffic, but I’ll be there shortly.

Buskirk: The old, “I’m stuck in traffic,” we’ve heard that one before.

Leibsohn: We all seemed to make it in right?

Buskirk: What’s that?

Leibsohn: Everyone else seemed to make it in on time.

Buskirk: Everyone did. Seth, do you want to play the game we were going to play with Ben?

Leibsohn: Sure.

Buskirk: Right, it’s a year since the election, right, which was in November last year and we also celebrated its one-year anniversary in November, not in December, whatever this fly-by-night calendar you use tells you to celebrate things.

Leibsohn: Yeah.

Buskirk: I want to figure out if you can identify any of these headlines, okay? “Why President Trump would be a bigger disaster than President Clinton?” “Donald Trump is crazy and so, is the GOP for embracing him.” “New nationalism amounts to generic white-identity politics.”

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: Here’s another one, “The white nationalists propagandist who will advise President Trump.” Another one, “The end is nigh. Donald Trump, horsemen of the Republican apocalypse.” Got a couple more, “Here’s why Donald Trump’s long con works so well.” “The art of the con.” “Thank goodness Trump is a compulsive liar.” Those were from the American Prospect, BuzzFeed, Vox, Salon, The Huffington Post, National Review or the Weekly Standard?

Leibsohn: I know the answer, because I read your book.

Boychuk: Can I put my answer?

Buskirk: Please.

Boychuk: The Weekly Standard.

Buskirk: It was a combination, National Review and the Weekly Standard. There were four from each.

Boychuk: Okay, cool, yeah. I was thinking, because the more over the top ones are very Standard-like, you know? Well, they’re not very standard. I mean, I’m sure they’re right from the Standard.

Buskirk: They’re Weekly Standard.

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: They were from the Weekly Standard, yeah.

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: Ben, can you tell the difference if you didn’t know? I mean, I think you probably knew where I was going with it. If you didn’t though, if you heard those words and I said, “Oh, those all came from BuzzFeed,” would you have said, “No way, those came from Buzz Feed. Those were obviously from some right-wing outlet.”

Boychuk: Right, no, and it could have been the editorial page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune too for that matter, but it’s a little funny that the movement conservative standard bearers were at times indistinguishable from their leftist counterparts.

Buskirk: Can they live in this environment? I mean, professionally, can they survive?

Boychuk: That’s a tough one to answer. I think in some way, maybe. I think we’ve talked about this on the air in the past. I think of the two that we just mentioned, National Review and the Weekly Standard, one of them is not going to be around in four years.

Buskirk: Are you saying that is like you know, which one? You have an opinion but, don’t want to say or you’re just saying one of them? There’s not room for two?

Boychuk: I don’t think there’s room for two. I think one of them will have to fall by the wayside. Either their big-dollar donors will decide that they’ve had quite enough of squandering their money or, certainly, their readership is on the wane. You can’t really have a magazine that nobody reads. I don’t know. I think that National Review‘s comments section has died down quite a lot, because they’ve—

Buskirk: Because nobody’s reading it.

Boychuk: Because no one’s reading it and they have . . . they’re left with their sort of true believers, which is fine, but no. I just don’t think in this climate you can so easily write off large chunks of your readership. It’s just not the way you succeed.

Buskirk: Yeah, National Review, like a lot of these magazines, has an annual cruise. For the past 10 or so years, they’ve averaged about 700 people on the cruise. They just did the cruise about what, six weeks ago? Something like that . . . 200.

Boychuk: Wow.

Buskirk: Yeah, that is not a sustainable business model. We’re going to go to a quick break. Then, we’ll come right back with Ben Boychuk and a fellow you guys might be familiar, Seth Leibsohn. We’ll be right back.

I am Chris Buskirk. He is Seth Leibsohn. Our guest is Ben Boychuk, managing editor of American Greatness, but who was that bumper music? Seth, I’m going to you.

Leibsohn: Yeah, no, that was John Sebastian, before he joined the Loving Spoonful.

Buskirk: He was using a stage name at the time of course, but yes. You’re, of course, absolutely correct. It’s the one and only John Sebastian playing for the crowds as Deep Purple.

Boychuk: Isn’t that Jimmy Page on that guitar?

Buskirk: Yes, yes, that was Jimmy Page playing the ax. It was the double-necked one with the 12 string on top and the six string beneath.

Boychuk:  Right, yeah. Can I just … Richie Blackmore, right?

Buskirk: Huh uh (affirmative).

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: Yeah, yeah, you got it.

Boychuk: Yeah, of course I got it.

Buskirk: Seth, are you almost here?

Leibsohn: Yes, I’m almost there, Chris.

Buskirk: Oh, good, because we miss you. I mean, it’s nice to hear your voice, but we miss you.

Boychuk: I’m really glad to hear his voice.

Buskirk: I know, poor Ben. Poor Ben. When are you going to come and be in studio with us, Ben?

Boychuk: That’s a good question. I don’t know.

Buskirk: Yeah.

Boychuk: I’ve got to get out there. We’ve got to get the whole crew together.

Buskirk: Yeah, that would … actually that would be a lot of fun. You should do that. Come out here. We’ll make a day of it.

Leibsohn: It’s actually never, ever once happened.

Buskirk: But, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t, right? We’re making America great again.

Boychuk: We are.

Leibsohn: Yeah, but maybe it shouldn’t, because then it’s just easier to … you know, should something happen, then what?

Buskirk: Right, you’re saying, maybe we should always have one person off site, a designated survivor?

Leibsohn: You know, like the State of the Union. Yes, a designated survivor, otherwise, who’s going to run the truck stop in Tuba City?

Buskirk: When I’m gone. Oh, when I’m gone.

Boychuk: I love this show so much.

Buskirk: Yeah. Were you guys listening to the news in between? Jeff Flake is on the case again. He is determined that his last act as a United States Senator, I guess, is going to be that he’s going to sponsor gun control legislation that will do what existing law already does, which is to say that somebody convicted of domestic assault can’t buy a gun. And he wonders why he was polling at 18 percent approval.

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: Not only gun control, but a law that already exists.

Boychuk: Right, and I assume then, he’s going to go back to work for some libertarian think tank, because they’re big on gun control too, right?

Buskirk: It’ll be very interesting to see what he does wind up doing.

Boychuk: Good grief.

Buskirk: Not sales is my guess.

Boychuk: I thought you were going to say his final act would be some more spectacular form of self-immolation. How much lower can his polls get? That would be nice. Maybe he can drive it down to just to he has support from his family.

Buskirk: Asymptotically, approaching zero.

Boychuk: Asymptotic, yeah. Well, good for him. Good luck.

Buskirk: Yeah, it is strange. I mean, this is in some way … I was saying it earlier in the show. I don’t know if you saw this today or Seth, but Rand Paul was assaulted while he was mowing his lawn on Friday …

Boychuk: Yeah.

Buskirk: … by his neighbor, a doctor, a medical doctor.

Boychuk: Right.

Buskirk: Got so crazy. The reporting out today is that the guy was getting crazy, because he didn’t like the way he was mowing his lawn. I mean, it was a landscaping dispute between neighbors. This guy, a doctor goes out and assaults his neighbor, a United States Senator, while he’s mowing his lawn and breaks half of his rib.

Leibsohn: Who is also a doctor.

Buskirk: Who’s also a doctor.

Boychuk: Awesome.

Leibsohn: Right.

Buskirk: What is wrong with people? Seth, we say this all the time. Is there a joke we’re not in on, because there has got to be. I mean, if Jeff Flake is in on the joke, I don’t get what the joke is, but like, his whole thing of getting elected to the Senate obviously is a big joke on the people of Arizona. Is he in cahoots somehow with this guy in Kentucky?

Leibsohn: The Rand Paul story is surprisingly … you’d think that would be a bigger story normally. I mean, when Harry Reid has a bruise on his eye, you could hardly open a paper without reading about it for, like, weeks. I’m just surprised this isn’t a big sorry. Serious point, I’m just surprised it isn’t.

Buskirk: Well, Republican number one. Republican, five broken ribs, I think the general . . . even if they don’t think it implicitly, they’re probably thinking, “Well, you know, he had it coming anyway.”

Leibsohn: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Boychuk: The reporting on that was a little bit odd to me too, because the initial reporting was, “Well, he wasn’t that seriously injured.” Then, it was “Five broken ribs and potentially, kind of serious.” But the guy who assaulted the senator, he’s already out on bail. I mean, it’s a fourth degree … I’m not even sure it’s a felony.

Buskirk: It’s fourth degree misdemeanor. They’re thinking of reclassifying it to a second-degree felony. He’s out on $7,500 of bail. He has admitted to tackling Rand Paul from behind and is planning to plead not guilty. I don’t know how those two things go together. “Yes, I did, but I’m not guilty of it.”

Boychuk: Yeah, he had it coming.

Buskirk: Yeah, weird. Anyway, we’re going to go to a quick break. Be right back after this with more of the Seth and Chris show.

I am Chris Buskirk. He is Seth Leibsohn. Our guest is Ben Boychuk, managing editor of American Greatness. You can see his work and the work of lots of other fine writers like Victor Davis Hanson, Conrad Black, Roger Kimball, Michael Walsh, Henry Olson, and others at www.amgreatness.com.

Ben, what … let me ask you this, what … I want to talk about Donna Brazile in just a second, but before we do that, tell me, what should people be looking at American Greatness? What are the high points this week?

Boychuk: As I like to say every time you ask me that question, “Everything!”

Buskirk: It’s 1,000 points of light.

Boychuk: Right, but no. If they’re going to focus on a few absolute must-reads, “Crossing the Trump Rubicon,” Victor Davis Hanson, which appeared yesterday, which are getting loads of comments. We’re getting lots of great response to that piece. Victor Hanson kind of assessing the president’s tenure so far in conjunction with the anniversary of the election.

The other piece listeners are going to want to take a look at is the first of a three-part series [Editor’s note: Actually, four parts] by Angelo Codevilla, “Reflections on Terrorism.” And Angelo is looking at these recently declassified documents from the Osama Bin Laden trove.

Buskirk: Yeah, this is a very, very good series, Ben and all these declassified documents on what you call the Osama Bin Laden trove, when did they come out? Last week, maybe 10 days ago?

Boychuk: Sometime last week and—

Buskirk: Not a 10th, not a tithe of the amount of coverage has been done on these documents. I mean, it is absolutely crazy what the Obama administration was covering up on Osama Bin Laden.

Boychuk: It is and when we say that, we don’t want people to think conspiracy theory, but they had at the end of Obama’s administration, the Director of National Intelligence released something like, I don’t know, 500 pages of stuff and said, “That’s it.” No, it wasn’t it. It wasn’t it at all. There were thousands of more pages.

Buskirk: People knew that. I mean, people who follow these things in the national security world, they all knew that they were there and have sort of been jumping up and down to each that they’re all these documents that nobody was looking at and let’s get them out there. It took a lot of work on behalf of some friends of ours and others to get these documents released. By the way, it took a Republicans president to get them released.

Boychuk: Yep, that’s right and so, Angelo Codevilla’s series, Reflections on Terrorism, Part 1 appears today, which is Tuesday.

Buskirk: Ben, did you know … I don’t mean to keep interrupting you, but I’m so exercised by this thing with this Osama Bin Laden. I mean, the biggest single lie right in there was that the Obama … try and talk about Osama and Obama in one conversation, you’re going to get it wrong at some point. But the big lie that they had was that Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were not coordinating with the Iranians, right? Obama wanted this Iran deal so bad, he could taste and would sell out the whole country to do it. In fact, the documents that they had that are now released and are public show very clearly, al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden were regularly coordinating with Iran.

Boychuk: That’s right and I was just getting to that, because Part 2 of the series Angelo is delving into that connection between al-Qaeda and elements in the Iranian government. It’s a must-read, I think for everybody and it’s a [four]-part series and Codevilla’s insights are always unique and he has a take on these things that you don’t see any place else by anybody else. I always love it when we get things from Angelo, because I always learn something new and interesting and his perspective is really just second to none.

Then, I would encourage folks to take a look at, we have a really fun piece, a couple of fun pieces. One we just posted within the past hour by my friend Boris Zelkin about sort of the follies of … the headline is “Vote for Sticker” and it’s just sort of about the empty cultural and sort of virtue signaling of … it’s Election Day in some parts of the country, Virginia and other places and so, the idea that you’re showing off your civic virtue by displaying your sticker. He has a fun little take on that. We’ve also got some good stuff. I recommend folks take a look at “The Forgotten Great American Male.”

Buskirk: Yeah, that’s very good.

Boychuk: Yeah, by Ted Malloch, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, a great name. It’s a nice meditation on manliness and manhood and—

Buskirk: Spoiler alert, he’s in favor of both.

Boychuk: He seems to be in favor of it, yes. We’ve had lots of good stuff. Folks need to come to American Greatness, www.amgreatness.com, every single day. We’ve got three, four, five new pieces every day. There’s always something going on. We’ve got audio going up all the time. There’s just a whole rich resource of material that we’re publishing at American Greatness that you’re not going to find any place else.

Buskirk: Yeah, no, look, I mean just this series that Angelo Codevilla on the just declassified Osama Bin Laden documents, the stuff that Obama was sitting on hiding. I mean, literally hiding from the American public so that he could tell some tall tales about Iran and about Osama Bin Laden. Nobody is covering this. I mean, this is so frustrating. After all this time of people trying to get these documents released, even now that they’re public, that very little attention is being paid to them. Tom Joselyn wrote something, I think maybe for the Standard about them and then, there’s been one or two other people who have written about it, but that’s about it. I mean, this series by Codevilla, who’s uniquely positioned I think to understand it, he’s a unique thinker, but I think this will be the definitive series on these documents.

Boychuk: I think so, too. Having read the second part and we’re getting to publish it tomorrow, I think a few people are going to want . . . people who are listening to this are going to want to sit down and read this series and really understand how it is that we have been misled over the past eight years and it’s changed, happily, with this new administration and just the nature of the fight that we’re in. It’s something that Codevilla has always been good on. Going back to right after 9/11, he wrote really some of the really definitive analysis and has really, I think, the best take on the war on terrorism. This whole time, he’s been writing on this. I mean, he’s been writing on intelligence matters for almost 40 years, but when it comes to the war on terrorism and the failings there, Codevilla has really been the best.

Buskirk: He’s been great and even when he took a heterodox opinions, particularly in the 2001, 2002, 2003 era. You want to know something? He’s been proven right over time. I mean, unpopular opinions that he held back then have been born out by the facts. He is a very unique, as I say every year, a very unique thinker, especially in his world in the national security space.

Then, right after this Ben, we’re going to have to leave it here, but we’ve got Hal Lambert, who’s going to join us. He published his first piece for American Greatness last week on the unique threat to the right that comes out of the tech giants, Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. Again, we’ll have audio for that for tomorrow, but Ben Boychuk has been our guest. He is managing editor of American Greatness. You can catch up with him @benboychuk on Twitter or at www.amgreatness.com. Ben, come back again soon. Next time, we’ll have Seth in studio.

Boychuk: Awesome, thank you.

Buskirk: All right, have a good one. Thanks.

Boychuk: Take care.

Buskirk: Hi, I’m Chris Buskirk. He is Seth Leibsohn. Welcome back to the Seth and Chris show. He actually is Seth Leibsohn and he is live and in living color back in the studio. Seth, my friend, I’m so happy to see you sitting across for me.

Bruce Willis: Welcome to the party, Pal.

Leibsohn: By the way, the best Christmas movie ever, right? We’re going to have to have a debate about Christmas movies at some point, but it starts with that “Die Hard” being the best one.

Buskirk: That is your … I know that’s your go-to response every year. It’s not a bad response. I do not denigrate. I don’t think I agree with it as the best Christmas movie ever, but as I said, it’s in the discussion for sure.

Leibsohn: OK.

Buskirk: It is … what’s the best Thanksgiving movie? That’s what’s coming up first.

Leibsohn: I know, we seem to just kind of bypass that, don’t we? Once November 1 hits, we go to Christmas movies.

Buskirk: I don’t, because I should be in charge of the society for the promulgation of Thanksgiving, because I love Thanksgiving.

Leibsohn: Yeah, it’s work. Have you ever seen me at Thanksgiving? It’s work.

Buskirk: I hope to see you at Thanksgiving this year?

Leibsohn: Do you?

Buskirk: Am I going to?

Leibsohn: Maybe.

Buskirk: Maybe, you sound like some other people we know. “Maybe, I don’t know. I’ve got to think about it.”

Leibsohn: What’s the bill of fare? Will there be a goose?

Buskirk: There will be a turkey.

Leibsohn: OK, I want a goose.

Buskirk: Maybe on break, Seth.

Leibsohn: It’s not that kind of show.

Buskirk: Look, I would love to cook a goose on Thanksgiving. I’m not in charge of that department.

Leibsohn: “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” my friend Amy says, is the best Thanksgiving movie.

Buskirk: Amy is correct. Amy is a winner. It is the finest of the Thanksgiving movies. It is an under represented genre, because as you say, people-

Leibsohn: Most people don’t remember it’s a thing.

Buskirk: People skip right to Christmas. They want to make the Christmas movie. I want to make the Thanksgiving movie.

Leibsohn: Right, exactly. It is a great movie, a little sad, a little sad.

Buskirk: Bittersweet.

Leibsohn: As funny as it is.

Buskirk: A little melancholy, but yeah.

Leibsohn: Yeah.

Speaker: Here’s a good idea, have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener.

Leibsohn: Now, was that just a clever encapsulation of something relevant to the discussion from the movie or was that a directive from the suits upstairs.

Buskirk: That was just the only thing I had from the movie.

Leibsohn: OK, all right, I worried it might have come from the suits upstairs.

Buskirk: I thought that was directly from the board of Salem Communications. Guys, in Phoenix, play that on the show in Phoenix.

Leibsohn: Actually, they said, “You’re going the wrong way.”

Buskirk: “How do they know where we’re going?” Yeah, see? I’ve seen the movie more than once, but did you realize Seth that it is just … Thanksgiving, two weeks from Thursday?

Leibsohn: Yeah, yeah, I know.

Buskirk: We need to … yeah, right? Yeah, there will be turkey in fact at the Buskirk household and I hope that we can give thanks for your presence.

Leibsohn: OK.

Buskirk: No?

Leibsohn: If there’s a goose, I’m there.

Buskirk: No, now you’re setting up demands. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We’re having turkey. We’re also having pumpkin pie, Brussels sprouts, probably pasta too. Gina, when you have a wife named Gina, you have pasta on Thanksgiving in addition. Not instead of, but in addition to all your standard rituals, which I love. I dearly love.

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