The Lion and Gun

About Matthew Locke | About Ross Hobbes

The Lion and Gun was, appropriately, conceived in a pub.

It was a few years ago, when I was still tasting the honey-dipped life of the bohemian expat in London, days spent as a freelance writer (as I charitably fashioned myself) [Hobbes: VERY charitably] and nights with the punters in Britain's finest watering holes. It was in one such comfortable old pub that I first met Ross Hobbes.

It wasn't Hobbes I was angling to meet, however, but the petite American exchange student he was speaking with. It sounded like a political conversation -- perfect! -- so I slipped into the seat next to her.

'So you go to Wellesley, huh?' Ross was saying.

'Yeah.'

'Didn't Hillary Clinton go to Wellesley?'

'She did.'

'I read somewhere she was the first woman at Wellesley.'

The young lady scrunched her eyebrows. 'Wellesley's an all girls' school.'

'Look at that. Hillary goes to Wellesley and a few years later they make it an all girls' school. How many more glass ceilings will she break before she's through?'

It amused me that she didn't get that he was mocking her. As I introduced myself I clumsily sent a full pint of Shepherd Neame Christmas Ale tumbling into her lap and that was it: I lost the girl but gained a friend. Turned out Ross was an American banker working at the time for a now-defunct investment house. [Hobbes: I neither confirm nor deny that said investment house is defunct.] Despite having more money in his billfold than I'd ever seen in a room at one time before, he seemed a decent human being, and anyway it was gratifying to finally meet somebody in Britain who knew his Schumers from his Hagels.

Politically we were polar opposites: me, a government-to-wake-you-up-in-the-morning-and-kiss-your-cheek-while-tucking-you-in-at-night liberal, he a if-you're-gonna-use-the-damn-road-you-oughta-pay-for-it libertarian. What we shared was a cynical sense of humor stoked by all species of political hackery.

Over the years our views on many things have evolved and converged. I still consider myself a liberal, but a pragmatic one; Ross remains a libertarian, but a moderate one not a moderate one at all - he's wallowing in it at the University of Chicago, after all. (But he likes Obama. I think it's the Goolsbee.) We agree that there are some things government must do, though it tends to do them poorly; the question that still divides remains where the line should be drawn, and those debates will continue in real life and at The Lion and Gun.

In these pages we will present issues of the day and trends over time for discussion with the entire community of readers. We will use our backgrounds in history and politics and economics and business put things in perspective. In this we'll try to add our little bit to the great two-and-a-half-century debate in America.

Regardless of your political persuasion, we hope you will join us.