Washington Examiner's Michael Barone honored with Bradley Prize

Wednesday night's Kennedy Center Gala honored the Washington Examiner's Senior Political Analyst Michael Barone as one of four recipients of the Bradley Prize, a $250,000 cash prize awarded for outstanding intellectual achievement. He was joined by former Federal Election Commission member Bradley Smith, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Editor Paul Gigot and Hoover Institution fellow John Taylor.

Bill Myers at the Washington Examiner reported that Mr. Barone followed in the footsteps of other notables including Washington Post columnists Charles Krauthammer and George Will, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, and Weekly Standard editor William Kristol.

I'm not saying Mr. Barone was a geeky kid but a clue to the fact he may someday win an intellectual prize came during his acceptance speech when he talked about his parents buying the World Book Encyclopedia and commented:

"When my mother would send me out in the back yard to play, I would sneak back down the side door in to the basement where we kept the encyclopedia and make tables showing the populations of major cities in 1940 and 1950. For reasons that I have always found unaccountable, none of the other kids were interested in census figures."

Unabashedly patriotic in his love for America, Mr. Barone is also a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of "The Almanac of American Politics." He joined the Washington Examiner as its senior political analyst in April 2009.

Read more about the Kennedy Center award ceremony.

Congratulations to Mr. Barone for receiving such an honor.