Kenneth Cribb, Jr., who served as counselor to Meese during his tenure as Attorney General. “Ed was not interested in immediate political payoffs,” said T. As Heritage Foundation scholar Lee Edwards notes, “Ed Meese had never been political-he thought of himself as a disinterested public servant.” 1 While it is common for political actors to downplay their inner Machiavelli, Meese’s distinction between politician and public servant was different. Meese recalled being “not particularly interested” when then-Governor-elect Ronald Reagan called him about a job interview in 1966 while serving as a deputy district attorney. For these, and his many other achievements detailed herein, Americans owe him their thanks through analyzing his experiences in public life. Meese’s congenial leadership continues to facilitate new avenues of substantive growth for the conservative legal movement, including combating the growth of federal criminal law, and limits on congressional power. Attorney General found a legal profession with little room for conservative analysis, and used the confluence of an inclined boss (Ronald Reagan) and Meese’s own personal commitment to conservatism to create a political movement that will outlast them both. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., Todd Gaziano, and Thomas Jipping reveal how the former U.S. Meese, Justice Samuel Alito, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Judge Loren Smith, the Honorable T. Meese embodied Edmund Burke’s characterization of a politician: a “philosopher in action,” committed to taking rarefied intellectual concepts and transforming mainstream politics by implementing those ideas through government institutions. Rather than simply concern himself with instant political advantage, Mr. Meese’s colleagues in the Reagan Administration, and presently at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, one finds that his achievements reveal a commitment to the realization of principles that transcend the politics of any period. Meese’s work in the Reagan Administration provides more than merely a list of accolades relegated to history. While his accomplishments are hardly unknown to the Federalist Society, Mr. Attorney General Edwin Meese celebrated his 80th birthday.
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