Joseph Sobran

Early life Michael Joseph Sobran Jr. was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on February 23, 1946, to Doris (née Prevost, 1924–1997), a department store clerk, and Michael Joseph Sobran (1916–1994), an autoworker. His paternal grandparents were from Austria-Hungary, and his mother was of English, French-Canadian and Irish ancestry. Sobran was raised in a Roman Catholic family. Sobran graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He studied for a Master of English degree with a concentration on Shakespearean studies. In the late 1960s, Sobran lectured on Shakespeare and English on a fellowship with Eastern Michigan. In response to his firing, Sobran claimed that Buckley told him to "stop antagonizing the Zionist crowd" and accused him of libel and moral incapacitation. In his own assessment, Jewish columnist Norman Podhoretz wrote that Sobran's columns were "anti-Semitic in themselves, and not merely 'contextually. In 1994, he founded "Sobran’s: The Real News of the Month", a newsletter that published until 2007. Institute for Historical Review In 2001, Pat Buchanan offered Sobran a column in Buchanan's new magazine The American Conservative. (After Sobran's death, Buchanan called him "perhaps the finest columnist of our generation".) However, the magazine's editor, Scott McConnell, withdrew the offer when Sobran refused to cancel his appearance before the Institute for Historical Review, a leading Holocaust-denying group. In 2001 and 2003, Sobran spoke at conferences organized by David Irving and shared the podium with Paul Fromm, Charles D. Provan, and Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review. In 2002, he spoke at the Institute for Historical Review's annual conference. Referring to Sobran's appearance at the conferences, historian Deborah Lipstadt wrote: "Mr. Sobran may not have been an unequivocal [Holocaust] denier, but he gave support and comfort to the worst of them". Writing in National Review, Matthew Scully said: "His appearance before that sorry outfit a few years ago [...] remains impossible to explain, at least if you're trying to absolve him". In the 2008 presidential election, Sobran endorsed Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. Death and legacy Sobran was twice married and divorced. He had four children. Sobran died in a nursing home in Fairfax, Virginia, on September 30, 2010, of kidney failure due to diabetes. == Views ==

Philosophy Throughout much of his career, Sobran identified as a paleoconservative like his colleagues Samuel T. Francis, Pat Buchanan, and Peter Gemma. He claimed to support a strict interpretation of the United States Constitution. He asserted that the Tenth Amendment meant that almost every federal government act since the Civil War had been illegal. He referred to himself as a "theo-anarchist". Sobran asserted in the neo-Confederate Southern Partisan magazine that Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream had become an "American nightmare" because civil rights had encouraged, in Sobran's words, "black thugs". Catholic teachings Sobran said Catholic teachings were consistent with his opposition to abortion and the Iraq War. Asked to summarize his views, Sobran said once, "I won't be satisfied until the Church resumes burning for heresy" — a remark that Buchanan's biographer Timothy Stanley described as "funny, offensive and honest". In a 1992 column, he complained of "a more or less official national obsession with a tiny, faraway socialist ethnocracy", meaning Israel. Sobran argued that the 9/11 attacks were a result of the United States government's policies in the Middle East. He claimed those policies are formed by the Jewish lobby. In 2002, Sobran wrote, "My chief offense, it appears, has been to insist that the state of Israel has been a costly and treacherous ‘ally’ to the United States. As of last September 11, I should think that is undeniable. But I have yet to receive a single apology for having been correct." He said his attitude was not anti-Semitism but "more like counter-Semitism". == Published works ==

Books • Single Issues: Essays on the Crucial Social Questions (1983, Arlington House) • Pensées: Notes for the reactionary of tomorrow (1985, Arlington House) • Alias Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time (1997, Free Press) Sobran espoused the Oxfordian theory that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare . • Hustler: The Clinton Legacy (2000, Griffin Communications) • ''Sobran's: The Real News of the Month'' (monthly newsletter) • Joseph Sobran: The National Review Years (selections of his work during his time at National Review, edited by Fran Griffin, 2012, Griffin Communications) At the time of his death, Sobran was working on two books, one concerning Abraham Lincoln's presidency and the United States Constitution and another about de Vere's poetry. Articles and speeches His essays appeared in The Human Life Review, Celebrate Life! and The Free Market. • The Church Today: Less Catholic Than the Pope? – National Committee of Catholic Laymen – 1979 • How Tyranny Came to America, ''Sobran's'', n.d. • Pensees: Notes for the reactionary of tomorrow, National Review, December 31, 1985. (extended essay) • Power and Betrayal – Griffin Communications – 1998 • Anything Called a Program is Unconstitutional – Griffin Communications – 2001 == References ==