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powerlineblog.com: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/05/looking-back-at-24-years.php

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Sunday, May 24, 2026

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Looking back at 24 years | Power Line Power Line Home About Us VIP Access Subscribe E-mail us A A Posted on May 24, 2026 by Scott Johnson in Announcements , Media Looking back at 24 years This site has now been around for 24 years. In Internet time, we are like Mel Brooks’s 2000 Year Old Man. Borrowing from and supplementing previous anniversary posts, I want to highlight themes that continue to resonate with me. As these reflections have grown over the years, they have come to rival “Chimes of freedom” in length, if not euphony. • It was 24 years ago this weekend — 24 years ago today, I think, but maybe tomorrow — that John Hinderaker went to Blogger and set up Power Line. On Memorial Day that weekend he gave me a call and invited me to contribute. We’v
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Looking back at 24 years | Power Line Power Line Home About Us VIP Access Subscribe E-mail us A A Posted on May 24, 2026 by Scott Johnson in Announcements , Media Looking back at 24 years This site has now been around for 24 years. In Internet time, we are like Mel Brooks’s 2000 Year Old Man. Borrowing from and supplementing previous anniversary posts, I want to highlight themes that continue to resonate with me. As these reflections have grown over the years, they have come to rival “Chimes of freedom” in length, if not euphony. • It was 24 years ago this weekend — 24 years ago today, I think, but maybe tomorrow — that John Hinderaker went to Blogger and set up Power Line. On Memorial Day that weekend he gave me a call and invited me to contribute. We’ve moved on from Blogger, but we’re still here. Survival has its charms — so many good sites have come and gone or gone off the deep end over the years. • As of May 2002 John and I had already been writing columns and essays together for ten years. Mitch Pearlstein of Center of the American Experiment — of which John is the current president — stands in a category by himself as a supporter and promoter of our work together before we found a home on the Internet. Although we wrote for those ten years under a joint byline, John was the brains of the operation. I was the one who worked to place our pieces for publication. • The highlight of our pre-Power Line work was “George Bush’s tax return,” published by National Review in May 1994. The article was an attack on the deeply shoddy (and influential) work of Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele. My friend Rudy Boschwitz obtained a copy of President Bush’s tax return for us. The tax return was at the heart the of the article. Rich Lowry edited the piece as managing editor of NR at the time. Rich arranged for the publication of the article online to help us celebrate our 15th anniversary. Please click on the link and check it out. • Our NR article provides a case study in the mainstream media’s modus operandi . It would be wrong to say that the press hasn’t changed since then. As everyone in his right mind knows, it is worse than ever. • We were ecstatic when NR accepted the article for publication. We faxed a copy of our draft of the article to President Bush. President Bush sent us one of his handwritten notes by US mail: Dear Scott and John, Your great piece “Barlett and Steele: What Went Wrong?” [our title] was right on the target. The problem is, of course, they have damaged us by their sloppy if not vengeful writing. I am glad you set the record straight. I would love to know if those two ever try to rebut that which you have written. Better still, if they apologized, though I would not hold my breath on that one. Many thanks for that insightful piece. It made Barbara and me feel very good indeed. Sincerely, and g
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