"The insight of conservatism is the lasting power of America’s founding principles. The Claremont Institute articulates these principles with brilliant clarity, and challenges each and every Lincoln Fellow to live up to them. There is no better training ground for a lifelong campaign in the trenches of political warfare."
This week, I have the honor and privilege to have been selected to be one of twelve participants in the Claremont Institute’s Lincoln Fellowship Program. I am very excited about it – frankly, it’s a really big deal for me.
First and foremost for those FlashReport readers who are not familiar with the Claremont Institute, the mission of the Institute is to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. These principles are expressed most eloquently in the Declaration of Independence, which proclaims that "all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." To recover the founding principles in our political life means recovering a limited and accountable government that respects private property, promotes stable family life, and maintains a strong defense.
This is a great spot in this column to direct you to the webpage for the Institute’s awesome flagship publication, the Claremont Review of Books. I subscribe and recommend that you do as well.
On their website, the Claremont Institute describes the Lincoln Fellowship thusly:
During their stay, Lincoln fellows meet with the Claremont Institute’s Senior Fellows and other distinguished visiting scholars to study American politics and political thought. In intensive daily seminars and relaxed evening symposia, fellows discuss a wide selection of great American readings. Topics of study and discussion include the Founding, the Civil War, the Progressive Era, the Great Society, and the enduring modern disputes between liberalism and conservatism. Fellows will also meet editors and writers of our flagship publication, the Claremont Review of Books.
In reviewing the agenda for our busy week here at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach, I can share with you Just some of the topics that we have or will address during our regimen of intensive lecture and Socratic discussions include The Conservative Movement and Natural Right, The Declaration of Independence, The Right to Property, Political Science of the Federalist, Founding Principles and the Role of the States, Religion and the Founding, Civil Rights & The 14th Amendment, Dred Scott and the Problem of Slavery in the Founding, Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Problem of Slavery, The Political Philosophy of Modern Liberalism, Progressivism and American Liberalism, The Administrative State, The Art of Political Warfare, Obama and the Fourth Wave of Liberalism, and Global Strategic Threats After the Cold War.
I won’t list all of the extremely qualified faculty that are on hand to teach all of these topics – but in just the first two days, we’ve already heard from a great many including Dr. Charles Kesler (pictured left) and Professor Harry Jaffa (no program that seriously looks at the ideas and actions of Abraham Lincoln 
could be complete without Jaffa, who is one of the leading Lincoln scholars in our nation, pictured to the right).
Some of the other 2009 Lincoln Fellows are people that you may recognize as conservatives who surf the world wide web – Andrew Breitbart of Breitbart.com (pictured below, left) and Kathryn Jean Lopez, 
the Editor of National Review Online. It’s fun to also have as a fellow participant a fellow member of GenNext, Yuri Vanetik. You can actually see short biographies and photos of all of this year’s Lincoln Fellows right here, and a complete list of former graduates of the Lincoln Fellowship can be read here.
I will close by expressing my personal appreciation to Claremont Institute President Brian Kennedy and his great team for given me and my eleven other colleagues the opportunity to participate in such a worthwhile program. I know that it is the goal of each and every one of us to take what we learn from this program and work to help educate those around us about the principles of our nation’s founding.
No doubt my experience here will also be reflected by increased efforts on my part to give FlashReport readers more exposure to the ideas and materials to which I have and am being exposed this week.
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