2008 Mightier Pen Award: Andrew McCarthy

National Review columnist, best-selling author, and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy was the 2008 recipient of the Mightier Pen Award from the Center for Security Policy. After many years of service within the Department of Justice and the Southern District of New York as a prosecutor– famously, for putting “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdul-Rahman behind bars for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing– Mr. McCarthy began a career as a hugely influential writer on matters of American national security. He wrote Wilful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad about his experiences and insights into the nature of the terrorist threat, and followed up with The Grand Jihad: How Islam And The Left Sabotage America, one of the most compelling bestsellers of 2010.

Also in 2010, Mr. McCarthy was a leading member of the Center’s Team B II, and a co-author of its report, Shariah: The Threat to America, published by the Center for Security Policy Press. He condensed the nearly 400 page report down to the length of a broadside for Encounter Books, How Obama Embrases Islam’s Sharia Agenda. Also available as an Encounter broadside is How the Obama Administration Has Politicized Justice.

Andrew McCarthy’s remarks were made at the Award reception in New York City’s 21.