Acknowledgments

WHEN I WAS fourteen years old, I read Christopher Buckley’s first novel, The White House Mess, while on vacation at the beach. Some boys watched Neil Armstrong and decided they wanted to become astronauts and go to the moon. I read Buckley and decided that I wanted to move to Washington and become a writer. It never occurred to me that I might become friends with him. It really, really never occurred to me that we might one day appear in a book together. Without being maudlin, it is difficult to convey how much it means to me to have Christopher as part of The Seven Deadly Virtues. I am deeply grateful.

Not that I’m playing favorites—there are no favorites in our little company. One of the many joys of editing this book was the opportunity to bring together so many of my favorite writers under one banner. Look through the table of contents and what you see is my own private all-star team, the writers whom I look for and admire most. Some of them, like P. J. O’Rourke, Larry Miller, Jonah Goldberg, Mollie Hemingway, and Christine Rosen, I’ve been friends with for years. Others, such as James Lileks, Rob Long, Joe Queenan, Iowahawk (not his real name), Rita Koganzon, and Michael Graham, I’ve admired only from afar. Three members of the crew—Andrew Ferguson, Matt Labash, and Christopher Caldwell—have been my colleagues at the Weekly Standard for seventeen years, since I was just a kid. They more or less taught me how to write. And then there’s Sonny Bunch and Andrew Stiles, whom I’ve watched grow up and develop into stud writers, too.

I’m thankful to all of them for coming on this joyride.

Mind you, the caper never would have happened if Susan Arellano at Templeton Press hadn’t given me the keys to the car and winked, as if to tell me that she probably wouldn’t ground us if we brought it back after curfew, even if it had a few scratches on the bumper. And there wouldn’t even be a car without the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation and Sir John Templeton. Many, many thanks to them for their forbearance.

Speaking of which, my wife, Shannon, is both my one true love and my editor of first and last resort—an amazing stroke of fortune (for me). I couldn’t have done this book—or anything else in life, really—without her.

And the final expression of my gratitude goes to our children, Cody, Cordelia, and Emma, who inspire virtue and vice in roughly equal measure. This book is dedicated to them because, in either mode, they make me laugh. Most of the time.

I love the three of you, all the way to the moon. And back.

—JVL