A Successful Summit

I've enjoyed the National Review Institute's Conservative Summit in downtown DC this weekend. A few highlights:

• Newt Gingrich spoke on Saturday morning, bubbling over with ideas as always. One of them was to redirect NASA's future program to award a prize for the first successful entrepreneurial effort to get humans back to the Moon.
• Princeton Professor Robert George gave a succinct and articulate review of issues involving the protection of the dignity of every human life, including abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cells and human cloning.
• Former Governors Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee spoke of their reform efforts in their respective states and how they apply to national issues. The later two are preparing for presidential runs in 2008.
• Mark Steyn, who often writes serious columns about the crises facing western civilization, delivered a very humorous delivery at the Saturday night dinner. (I heard that this continued in a late night session which I passed on so as to commute home and get some sleep.)
• Sunday's concluding luncheon featuring economist Larry Kudlow and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow. Also, sitting at my table was Debra Burlingame, whose brother was pilot of the American Airlines Flight 77 which was crashed into the Pentagon by the Al Qeada terrorists. She told us of her efforts to help save the Ground Zero memorial in NYC from the travesty of diluting the memory of the 9/11 atrocities.

National Review Online's (NRO) Corner blog features accounts from over the weekend, and hopefully there will later be a summary at NRO's home page. I believe that following November's disappointing election setbacks, this conference was well timed to revitalize the conservative movement. As I told NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez when I was leaving the luncheon room today, "It worked! We're energized!"