Events Detail

        Schambra, Wattenberg, and Schulz

                          Ben Wattenberg

          Schambra, Wattenberg, and Schulz

As an aide and speechwriter to President Lyndon Johnson, Ben Wattenberg quickly rose through the ranks of the Democratic Party to become an adviser to Hubert Humphrey and Henry "Scoop" Jackson in their bids for the White House.  At the time Wattenberg started his career among respected Democratic operatives in the Johnson White House, a chasm—partly inspired by the Vietnam War-formed. Somewhere along the way the liberal Wattenberg morphed into the neo-conservative Wattenberg of today. How and when did this radical political transformation take place?  Whom and what tipped his personal ideological scales? 

Wattenberg answers these questions and also traces the emergence of the neoconservative movement from its earliest roots among Cold War thinkers like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz to intellectuals such as Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.

Hudson Institute was pleased to host Wattenberg to discuss his ideological journey, which he has chronicled in his new book Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism.  William Schambra, a former colleague of Wattenberg's and now Director of Hudson's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal introduced and moderated the discussion.  Nick Schulz, Editor-in-Chief of The American and DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute provided commentary.

Ben Wattenberg is a Hudson Institute Adjunct Fellow and a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.For nearly 15 years he has hosted the PBS show, Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg. He has authored and co-authored 14 books.

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