Revolution Minded: Michael Barone

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MICHAEL BARONE IS a well-known magazine columnist, television pundit and author of illuminating historical accounts. But generations of political science students (and lobbyists) will recognize the conservative scholar as the co-author of an indispensable resource: "The Almanac of American Politics."

Among other things, "The Almanac," published biannually since 1971, breaks down and analyzes every House district, member of Congress, governor, congressional campaign and successful House redistricting effort.

When we visited Barone at his beautiful home just outside of Georgetown, it quickly became apparent that the man himself is an almanac of American politics. He listed, off the top of his head, the current members of Congress who were in the chamber back in '71. He remarked that he has visited every congressional district. He made offhand statements such as, "You know, California's 1960 redistricting plan — the state gained eight seats and they gained 11 Democrats and dropped three Republicans in the '62 election, but then the Republicans gained eight seats in '66."

Anyone who has internalized a fraction of Barone's political knowledge is cognizant of an ironclad dictum of successful public relations: stay on message.

Barone did not grant us an audience to publicize his almanacs. They need no publicity. Barone, rather, agreed to talk with us about his latest book, "Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval that Inspired America's Founding Fathers."

In the midst of a lengthy monologue that ostensibly answered our second question about the "Almanac," Barone slowly, steadily shifted gears, and began to touch on what he wanted to talk about: England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 to 1689.

Barone argues that the Glorious Revolution is a fascinating, stirring event — and one that is inexplicably forgotten in the U.S. His engrossing and richly detailed work lays out the manner in which King James II, a Catholic, was overthrown by series of domestic betrayals by the Protestant ruler of the Netherlands, William of Orange — who happened to be James' son-in-law.

William, who promised to restore parliamentary authority in the wake of James' heavy-handed rule, was embraced by an English populace terrified of both Catholicism and a second English civil war. After James II fled to France and William was installed as king, the new monarch approved a Bill of Rights that strongly prefigured a similarly titled American document; established a national bank; launched a long war against the expansionist, absolutist France of Louis XIV; and allowed Parliament to be elected freely and meet frequently — all of which stood in marked contrast to James' reign.

"Our First Revolution" persuasively argues that the events of 1688 and 1689 affected English traditions — guaranteed liberties, representative democracy, capitalism and an anti-tyrannical foreign policy — which continue to pay dividends in the free world. In person, however, Barone expounded upon one of his book's less-obvious themes: the need for bold action in a world of imperfect information.

"One of the things you realize when you start writing a narrative like this is that these people had anything but perfect information or communication," Barone said. "They were operating with a lot of lag time. News of William's landing, as I recall, takes two days to get to London. You can drive that in about four hours.

"We're always saying, 'George Bush made his decision without knowing exactly what was going on.' Well, in history, people had to make decisions with a lot less perfect information than is available to contemporary leaders. There are always unknowns — including known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns — but they had many more of them than we do. So, it took a certain amount of daring for William to take 25,000 troops and 500 ships, in a difficult sailing season, away from the Netherlands — when there was always the possibility that Louis XIV would attack — and go to England, where it was by no means clear that they would be rapturously received. He might well have been involved in a civil war for many years.

"I suppose one of the lessons is: To achieve great things, you have to take great chances, often, and you cannot be timid. This idea that you have to have an exit strategy, that you have to have everything perfectly planned out, that nothing can go wrong — it isn't how the world works, or ever has, or ever will. We want a zero-defect-war. There is no zero-defect-war. There is no zero-defect Boy Scout camping outing."

It takes a deft conservative pundit indeed to turn a discussion of England's Glorious Revolution into a convincing apology for the invasion of Iraq. "Our First Revolution," however, betrays very little ax-grinding. It is mostly, as an admiring Jon Stewart said on his "Daily Show" interview with Barone, a skillfully told, extremely edifying account of a series of Shakespearean historical events.

We planned on asking Barone if he ever considered running for office himself, but never had the chance. After fielding questions about "Our First Revolution" and declaring that "political science" is an oxymoron ("It's an art"), Barone ushered us out of his living room. We understood completely. He was approaching a deadline for the 2008 edition of "American Politics."

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Written by Express contributor Tim Follos

Photos courtesy Crown Publishing Group