The Corner  The one and only.  Thatcher Was Right, the Left Was
Wrong   As a child in the 1970s, it was clear to me that
something was very wrong with the world, and very wrong with my
country. The first political sentiment I can recall is feeling
sorry for Jimmy Carter. He was the president of the United
States, the most powerful man in the world, but he was held in
contempt, the intensity of which remains clear in my memory
today. My parents were not political people, and their friends
were not political people, but they had very strong feelings
about President Carter. I can remember my older brother reviling
President Carter, and he was not yet ten years old. The trouble
had something to do with prices and something to do with oil,
which seemed strange to me: We were surrounded by oil wells in
West Texas, but there were lines at the gas stations. We were
surrounded by farms, but my mother was very much occupied with
the price of food.  The election of 1980 was not just a vote —
it was a repudiation: of Car