Michael Ledeen, 1941-2025

Just weeks after the passing of David Horowitz, another leading conservative light has died. Michael Ledeen passed away on May 17 at the age of 83.

Ledeen was a former liberal who moved to the right as he saw liberals drifting further left and into anti-Americanism. He joined Horowitz and others in standing up to the evil they saw in this world.

“Like David Horowitz, whose recent passing reminded so many of the debt the movement owed to his work, Ledeen was a liberal scholar who came into his own as a fiery public thinker and activist with the rise of Reagan,” writes Daniel Greenfield in his wonderful tribute to Ledeen at Front Page Magazine. “Also like Horowitz, he was uncompromising in defense of principle, but would also unpretentiously build relationships with everyone in the fight because he knew victory would depend on building a movement.”

Among those evils and threats that Ledeen and Horowitz saw was radical Islam. He spoke out strongly against the threats that Islamists pose at home and abroad.

“I often say to people, you’ve all seen these demonstrations in the streets of Iran, thousands of people chanting, ‘Death to America,’” he said at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Restoration Weekend in 2015. “What do you think they mean? What is that all about anyway? Is that some local street festival? Is it something they do to amuse themselves? And the answer is no. That’s exactly what they have in mind. It’s exactly what they want to do.”

Related: David Horowitz Cracked the Leftist Code

“If you ask us what Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei means when he leads his weekend crowds in a chant of ‘Death to America,’ most Americans will not say ‘he wants to destroy us all,’” he wrote here at PJ Media in 2016. “Yet that is precisely what he means, and if we had leaders worthy of the name, they would be designing a strategy to bring down the Tehran regime before Khamenei and his evil henchmen do terrible things to us. Here.”

Ledeen wrote here at PJ Media and for other sites for years, and he always pointed out the dangers that America faced. He also had insight on how we could avoid those dangers and fight those threats.

Ledeen was no friend to the left that he abandoned, which is unfortunately often the case for those who "leave the reservation." But that didn't stop Ledeen for standing up for what he believed in.

Greenfield writes:

Ledeen’s passing was met with contempt by many of the same leftists who had penned acid-tongued obituaries for David Horowitz. Leftists connected him to every ‘right-wing conspiracy’ and investigated him during the Iran Contra hearings in hopes of finding something.

Like David, they hated him because he was right.

“Some dismissed Ledeen as a ‘neoconservative’, but while many of his colleagues from the Reagan and Bush years scrambled to become Never Trumpers, he saw Trump as the fulfillment of his vision of a strong America, able to deter foreign and domestic enemies, and fought for him,” Greenfield continues. “Like Horowitz, he lost friendships because he supported Trump, but never backed down.”

His years writing for PJ Media overlapped with my first few years writing here as a freelancer, but I never had any interactions with him. I wish I had because of his insight, passion, and tremendous talent.

“Michael Ledeen was that most unusual of entities, a truly happy warrior. He was a man of deep conviction and a profound commitment to the defense of freedom and human dignity, and was keenly and intimately aware of the terrible destructive power of leftism,” said my friend and PJ Media colleague Robert Spencer. “Yet in all my interactions with him over the years, he was unflaggingly affable, cheerful, and optimistic, never angry or bitter, even as he looked squarely into the face of those destructive forces and was doing all he could to stop their seemingly inexorable advance. I benefited greatly from knowing Michael, and will both miss him and continue to try to emulate his calm determination in the face of evil.”

He leaves behind his wife, Barbara, herself a longtime operative in GOP and conservative politics, and his three children, who were all involved in military and defense. He’s sorely missed, but his work carries on here at PJ Media, especially in the works of our fierce critics of Islam like Spencer and Raymond Ibrahim.