In the summer of 2012, in Portland, Maine, it was my happy assignment to give an award for something or other to Edwin J. Feulner. He deserved that award, whatever it was. For it was already clear on that occasion, and is unmistakably so today, that Ed should have won every award it is within our power to bestow. Time after time, cycle after cycle, crisis after crisis, it was Ed Feulner who provided the leadership that we conservatives needed.

Here are the pertinent excerpts from that presentation:

Most of you are familiar with the seminal contributions made to conservatism by the late William F. Buckley Jr. In the early years of the conservative revival, Bill Buckley and his merry band were the movers and shakers of American politics – challenging the pervasive liberal pieties, building coalitions, calling our country back to the noble cause of ordered liberty. So commanding was his presence on the national scene that, for almost 30 years, conservatism was, roughly speaking, what Bill Buckley said it was.

Some of you may not be as familiar with the contributions made by Ed Feulner. You should be. When Ed was named president of the Heritage Foundation in 1977, it was a tiny policy shop with implausibly large ambition, housed in a rabbit warren of offices that stood no better than a 50-50 chance of passing fire inspection. Ed Feulner has realized that large ambition. Today from its base in Washington – in fine buildings bestriding the U.S. Capitol – Heritage is the most important conservative organization in the country and the most influential think tank in the world. It is a 24/7 force for the good and the true and, when it comes to government, for the small and the modest.

Beginning with its indispensable support for Ronald Reagan and continuing into the present season with its withering critique of Barack Obama, conservatism over much of the past 30 years has been, roughly speaking, what Heritage and Ed Feulner say it is. All of us who push back against the insidious creep of statism, not to mention those among us who cling atavistically to guns and to God, are in Ed Feulner’s debt.

Well and faithfully done, old friend.