In remarks on the Senate floor three weeks ago, Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader in that body, said,

I’ve spoken before about Hungary’s decade-long drift into the orbit of the West’s most determined adversaries. It’s an alarming trend. And nobody — certainly not the American conservatives who increasingly form a cult of personality around Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — can pretend not to see it.

I devote my column today to this matter: Hungary, Russia, China, Iran — and us. If interested, go here.

Yesterday’s Impromptus, I began with Ulysses S. Grant. Judging from my mail, he has a lot of admirers in our country. Which is heartening.

I also noted the death of Alex Salmond, the Scottish independence leader. I wrote,

I am a great lover of Britain, as it is. I was very pleased when Scottish independence was rejected in the 2014 referendum. But I know myself a little — and if I were Scottish, I bet I would be a nationalist. Insults from the English would make me so. At any rate, I understand the Scottish nationalists, though, from an ocean away, I oppose their cause.

A reader writes,

Practically speaking, I believe Scotland is much better off as a part of Great Britain. My Scottish grandmother, who admittedly married the son of an Englishman, was very much a Scot but also very British. And if you really study the history of Scotland and England, you’ll see a lot of intertwined back-and-forth relations, including the kings and queens.

Our reader takes bagpipe lessons. And he tells us the following story, courtesy of his instructor:

An English girl working in Glasgow met a handsome young man, an outstanding piper and teacher at the National Piping Centre. He has a very Scottish name, and he has red hair. They fell in love and planned to marry. When she told her English father back in London that she was engaged to a Scot, he asked his name. Upon hearing it, he replied, “Oh, great, and I suppose he has red hair and plays the bagpipes!”

The father told this story at the wedding, to laughter all around.

In that column yesterday, I said,

For years, I have thought of writing a book about missile defense — a political history, the political battle over missile defense, rather than a technological history (though there would be some of the technological, naturally). I wonder whether readers would be interested.

About five people wrote me to say that they would indeed be interested. So, that’s a start.

Last week, I did a podcast with Robert P. George and Cornel West. Introducing Professor George, I said that he grew up in West Virginia. I went on to say, “Not every West Virginian plays the banjo, but he does.”

A reader writes,

Jay,

Several years ago I went to a performance by Kathy Mattea, the country and bluegrass artist. At some point she switched from a guitar to a banjo, explaining that she had recently taken it up. She also said that her husband was annoyed by her banjo playing but that she told him, “You knew I was from West Virginia when you married me.”

Splendid. My thanks to one and all.