- Our Man Derb

Few people write with the kind of logical irreducibility of John Derbyshire. And since that's so he often finds himself saying things which utterly and complete enrage the left, right down to their core. And he's therefore been on the receiving end of the kind of leftists vitriol that few people other than Sarah Palin ever see.

Rage at his positions and I'm quite sure he couldn't care a whit one way or the other. If he didn't know from where he was speaking, he'd have probably kept his mouth shut - or at the very least said so first off. I've always gotten the impression that he's perfectly willing to wait patiently for the truth to come smack you in the face and wake you up. I've never asked him how he felt about the personal attacks that come hand in hand with leftist scorn.

But speaking for my own impressions, where our man Derb is concerned I find them totally off the mark.

John is, I'm very proud to say, a friend of mine. And I think this video brings out at least a little of his personal charm that people might have trouble finding in his writing. I find him to be polite, quite jovial and much more soft spoken in person than you would probably expect.

The left has called him all sorts of nasty things and even his kids call him squid-ward. But I think this speech shows that the moniker is mostly undeserved.