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Perhaps the most influential editorial writer of our time, Robert L. Bartley died this past December after a long battle with cancer. He was 66 years old.
Bartley was the editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal for 30 years before stepping aside in late 2002 because of his illness. Bartley's writing defined the conservative agenda that spawned the Reagan revolution which has set the tone of American politics for the past quarter-century. Bartley's columns became must reading for policymakers on both the right and the left. He was an early advocate of the supply-side economics that drove the Reagan administration. Bartley's support was crucial in rallying the business community behind the Reagan candidacy. Bartley won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1980, the same year in which Reagan was elected president.
African-American journalist Brent Staples said of Bartley in a New York Times tribute, "I liked him while disagreeing with much of what he wrote. I admired the way he staked out unambiguous positions and pursued them passionately."
On December 2, when it was apparent that Bartley was soon to die, he received a telephone call at home from President Bush notifying him that he had been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,...