Robinson and Long

Dear Readers:

Why a new web site? Because we are lazy. It is that simple.

Sitting around with our pal Hugh Hewitt, we were bemoaning the fact that all of our favorite writers were not collected in one place. Hugh said “Rob Neppell of Kithbridge can fix that.” Hugh was right. And Rob did.

The result is RobinsonandLong.com, our public service to lazy people everywhere (though we'd be happy to make a profit from it as well. E-mail if you'd like to advertise.)

As you can see, this is a giant aggregator of the very best in interesting, smart, funny center/right writers and intellectuals. We have no doubt missed someone along the way, and we reserve the right to tweak the list, but at the outset we decided that we really would limit the writers we publicize to those we consider "must reads," that is, if we saw the byline, we had to read what followed.

Take a look around the site. There are old warriors, young turks, and all sorts of conservatives, from paleo- to neo-, crunchy to wet, but all deserving our, and we think your, attention. All under one roof.

We'll add features as we go along, but as we enter the season where the blizzard of columns, blogs, analysis, and essays that we want to read becomes an unmanageable maze of websites and hyperlinks, we are pleased to give you a virtual shortcut to the brightest stars in the conservative sky.

Enjoy! And come back often!

Peter Robinson is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he edits Hoover's quarterly journal, the Hoover Digest, and hosts Uncommon Knowledge, a webcast on which his interview subjects have included John McCain, Christopher Hitchens, Condoleeza Rice, Tom Wolfe, Henry Kissinger, Victor Davis Hanson, and William F. Buckley, Jr. Peter is the author of three books: How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life; It's My Party: A Republican's Messy Love Affair with the GOP; and Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA.

Peter grew up in Vestal, in upstate New York, attended Dartmouth and Oxford, and then went to work in the White House. He served as Chief Speechwriter to Vice President George H. W. Bush and then as Speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. Peter drafted more than 300 speeches. Nobody remembers more than six words: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

Peter went from the White House to Stanford business school. (The journal he kept as he floundered through the MBA program eventually turned into Snapshots From Hell.) He spent his first year after business school in New York City, where he reported to the founder of the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, and his second year in Washington, D.C., where he served as director of the SEC's Office of Public Affairs, Policy Evaluation, and Research. (The acronym? Possibly the finest in the entire federal government: O, PAPER.) Peter joined the Hoover Institution in 1993.

A contributor to Fox News and a frequent blogger on National Review Online, Peter is working on a book about the Cold War. He lives in Northern California but travels five times a year to Hanover, New Hampshire, where he serves on the Dartmouth board of trustees.

Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood. He began his career writing on TV's long-running "Cheers," and served as co-executive producer in its final season. During his time on the series, "Cheers" received two Emmy Awards, and two Golden Globe awards.

He is a contributing editor of National Review, and Newsweek International and writes occasionally for the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. His weekly radio commentary, "Martini Shot" is broadcast on the Los Angeles public radio station KCRW, and is distributed nationally. It's available here and also podcast in iTunes. He blogs, appropriately enough, at www.roblong.com.

His first book, Conversations with My Agent, chronicled his early career in television. It was published in the UK by Faber & Faber, in the US by Dutton, and in France by Actes Sud. His second book, Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke, was published in November 2005 by Bloomsbury.

By Hollywood standards, Rob is an arch-conservative. By arch-conservative standards, Rob is a wet Joe Lieberman-esque squish. These are unresolved conflicts.