Gone are the days when conservative authors were few in number and publishing successes fewer still. These days, books by or about conservatives roll off the presses in an ever-increasing stream, many of them making the best-seller list and remaining there for weeks or even months. In surveying the conservative books of 2002, in fact, the main challenge is to reduce the list to manageable proportions. The 20 titles reviewed here thus make up a far from comprehensive—much less exhaustive—list of significant conservative books, and many others could have been justifiably included. Most of the books reviewed here* understandably address contemporary issues or figures. Before proceeding to them, however, two noteworthy, more historical, books should be mentioned that cover two giants of the conservative intellectual movement. Both were published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), whose 50th anniversary is being celebrated this year. Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement ISI Books By Kevin J. Smant Foreword by M. Stanton Evans 425 pages, $29.95 In 1954, when the first birth pangs of the conservative movement were being felt , Whittaker Chambers, with good reason, growled about "Much that is wrong about the right; people popping out like rabbits; no common conservatism; no possibility of getting six right wingers around a table at one time; or if you could, little possibility of finding common ground." This debilitating problem—the rancorous dispute between libertarians and traditionalists—would have prevented the rise of an effective conservative movement, had it not been countered and overcome. That the problem was surmounted is due in large part to the efforts of William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of National Review magazine, founded in 1955, and within NR to the efforts of Frank S. Meyer, for more than 15 years a senior editor and the book review editor of the magazine. Meyer, a gruff though personally generous intellectual, had been a Communist, and when he rejected communism and its collectivist vision he applied his revolutionary zeal to advancing the cause of human freedom. In the pages of NR and other publications and in debates with conservatives of all stripes, he hammered out a "fusionist" philosophy for the conservative movement that accommodated the natural human desire for freedom within a structure of traditional Western values. Meyer’s fusionist vision largely won the day on the right, effectively melding the traditionalists and libertarian factions into an effective intellectual—and then political—force capable of successfully battling international communism and domestic collectivism. Within the conservative movement, untold numbers of office holders, journalists and activists acknowledge a profound debt to Frank Meyer and this books is a fitting, and long over-due, tribute to his legacy. James Burnham and the Struggle for the World: A Life By Daniel Kelly Foreword by Richard Brookheiser. ISI Books 475 pages, $29.95 This book summarizes the legacy of James Burnham, another pioneer of the conservative intellectual movement. Burnham was a colleague of Meyer’s at National Review and the two sparred frequently over principles and policy questions. Like Meyer, Burnham was an ex-Communist and he also possessed a prodigious intellect and, by the time he came to National Review, had already achieved renown for his writings, particularly his book The Managerial Revolution. Burnham’s great mission in life was resisting and then vanquishing communism, and his greatest contribution was as geopolitical analyst and strategist. Burnham saw liberalism as a decadent and defeatist ideology and felt that it was the chief impediment to mounting an effective resistance to communism a view that he explored brilliantly in his book Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny Of Liberalism. Toward the end of Burnham’s life President Reagan acknowledged the nation’s debt to him by presenting Burnham with the Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony. Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism By Peter Schweizer Doubleday 288 pages, $26.00 Ronald Reagan still looms large in the hearts and minds of conservatives and each year brings forth further books about him. Peter Schweizer’s effort is one of the best that has been the written about the 40th President, presenting for the first time a comprehensive account of Reagan’s 40-year battle with communism. Schweizer had already written a groundbreaking account of Reagan’s orchestrated program as President to undermine the Soviet Union (Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union). In this latest book, he provides a detailed account of Reagan’s battle against the Communists who had tried to take over the Hollywood film industry 30 years earlier. It was that first hand experience with Communists and their fanaticism that gave Reagan a visceral understanding of communism that was lacking in most American politicians—Republican as well as Democrat. It was this understanding that informed Reagan’s strategy and tactics as President. As Schweizer points out, Reagan’s steadfast opposition to communism brought threats to the safety of himself and his family and derision, contempt and condescension from Clark Clifford and other liberal "intellectuals." But Reagan persevered and in doing so won one of the greatest victories achieved by any President. Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism From Inside the Bush White House By Bill Sammon Regnery 400 pages, $27.95 From Reagan’s war we go to Bush’s war—the war against terrorism. In Fighting Back Washington Times White House correspondent Bill Sammon has written a riveting account of the defining moment of George W. Bush’s presidency: Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Sammon has excellent sources in the Bush Administration—as well as in Congress and the press corps—and the book is based largely on interviews with them. The President also granted him an exclusive interview on the subject. The result is an unrivaled account—sometimes minute by minute—of Bush’s experiences, before, during and after the traumatic events of September 11. With its verbatim dialogue and fly-on-the-wall perspective, Fighting Back reads as quickly as a fast-paced novel, providing a detailed portrait of George Bush and those around him during one of the great crises of our time. Breakdown: How America’s Intelligence Failures Led to September 11 By Bill Gertz Regnery 273 pages, $27.95 Whereas Reagan’s War describes how Ronald Reagan correctly assessed the nature of the Soviet menace and put in place comprehensive plan to eliminate it, Breakdown spells out how U.S. authorities—from the White House, to Congress, to the CIA and FBI—failed to understand the gravity of the terrorist threat posed by Osama bin Laden and to take steps to counter that threat. Written by Bill Gertz, the Washington Times’ widely respected Pentagon correspondent, Breakdown is a devastating exposé of ineptitude and willful ignorance on a massive scale. Still hobbled by "reformist" restrictions imposed by a runaway liberal Congress in the 1970s, the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) lost the ability to conduct effective surveillance of enemy forces, either inside or outside the United States. Moreover, the CIA, under a Clinton-appointed director, became ensnared in hiring quotas and other politically correct agendas instead of trying to recruit the best experts available to build a professional intelligence agency. Gertz describes in compelling fashion the Clinton Administration’s obstinate refusal to respond to terrorist acts of the early 1990s by improving our intelligence agencies and ordering effective countermeasures. The consequences of this neglect were seen on September 11. As Gertz makes clear, Bill Clinton is most culpable for this catastrophe, but there is plenty of blame to go around. Invasion, How America Still Welcomes Terrorist, Criminals and other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores By Michelle Malkin Regnery 332 pages, $27.95 This book is a perfect companion for Breakdown. Author Michelle Malkin, a first-generation American of Filipino descent, is properly grateful that the U.S. has a generous immigration policy, understanding that immigrants have built America—her own family being recent examples. Malkin argues, however, that America’s liberal immigration policy has run amok and that the laws that are on the books are not being enforced. She provides statistics aplenty and a wealth of examples that expose the politicization, corruption and dereliction of duty that riddle the system. Politically, Malkin, another HUMAN EVENTS columnist, is even-handed in her approach. She criticizes Bill Clinton and Al Gore for their "Citizenship USA" program that rushed hundreds of thousands of immigrants through the naturalization process in order to register them to vote, but she also blames George Bush’s over-zealous courting of Hispanics for weakening immigrant-screening procedures. Corrupt diplomatic personnel who exchange gifts for visas, corporations that pressure the government for immediate clearance of aliens and lazy immigration officials who rubber-stamp visa requests for people such as Mohammad Atta are all chastised for their complicity in creating the present dangerous situation that presents growing threat to the safety of all law-abiding Americans. An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal By Linda Chavez. Basic Books 262 pages, 26.00 Linda Chavez received her 15 minutes of national fame when President-elect George W. Bush nominated her to be his Secretary of Labor, only to have Chavez withdraw her name under a firestorm of criticism for "harboring an illegal alien." The charge was a monstrous distortion of the facts and the brutality and unfairness of the attacks left Chavez deeply wounded and, she says, "shattered her reputation." The good thing to come out of the ordeal is that it caused Chavez, whose columns appear in HUMAN EVENTS, to reflect on her life and to put those reflections in this memoir. And it is an extraordinary life, beginning with her childhood in a chaotic Mexican-American family plagued by alcoholism and marital strife and the loss of four siblings as well as not a few instances of discrimination because of her Mexican background. On one level Chavez’s memoir is another chapter of the great American story of rags to riches, achieved by intelligence, perseverance and hard work and, as such, it provides some fascinating vignettes. On a different level, the book traces another great modern American journey, that of liberal to conservative. For the first years of her adult life Chavez was a fast-rising star in the world of Democratic, union and ethnic politics. In her book she provides a fascinating account of her gradual metamorphosis into a free-market conservative and advocate of traditional values and a prominent spokesman for the conservative point of view in all manner of public forums. Reading this book one concludes happily that, despite of her nomination setback (or in part because of it), Linda Chavez is still an eloquent voice on the right—a voice that we will hear often in the future. What Color Is a Conservative? My Life and My Politics By J. C. Watts, Jr. Harper Collins 294 pages, $24.95 Many would say that Congressman J. C. Watts (R.-Okla.) is another "unlikely conservative"—merely because of the fact he is black. As we all know, 90% or so of the black electorate typically votes Democratic and among blacks "conservative" tends to be equated with being racist or segregationist. Nothing, actually, so enrages the liberal elite. Just look at their vicious attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. J. C. (for Julius Caesar) Watts is well aware of this. The fifth of six children, Watts was raised in Eufala, Okla., and witnessed his father and uncle battle to end segregation there. J.C. himself was one of the two children that integrated the local elementary school. Watts parents were what we could call "traditional values" folks, teaching him the importance of religion, family, hard work and self-sufficiency. Watts absorbed those values and worked hard to develop his scholastic and athletic skills. His talent won him a scholarship to the University of Oklahoma where became the starting quarterback, taking the team to two Orange Bowl championships. As Watts grew older, he increasingly realized that the values he believed in—faith, family, freedom, free enterprise—were values that the Republican Party stands for and he made the difficult decision to leave his Democratic political heritage and become a Republican. Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson By Kenneth R. Timmerman Regnery 501 pages, $29.95 The "Rev." Jesse Jackson has been an irritating omnipresence in American life for more than three decades, parlaying alleged racial grievances into fame, fortune and political power. Most Americans (probably) and most conservatives (certainly) have long regarded him correctly as a hustler and this book provides the documentation that should persuade even the most incorrigible Jackson apologist. Shakedown methodically exposes the false claims (the title "Reverend," the close bond with Martin Luther King, etc.), the fraternizing with Communists, dictators and unsavory characters of all kinds, the demagoguery, the sexual prowling, the unbounded hunger for publicity, the misuse of millions of dollars of funds contributed to his "non-profit" organizations and, of course, the intimidation of corporations by threatening racially based protests—the shakedowns that have provided millions for Jackson’s "non-profit" empire and the title for this book. The only criticism of Shakedown is that the evidence is accumulated so thoroughly and piled on so high that some readers might experience information overload. Shakedown is none the less an invaluable reference book—a definitive account of Jackson’s multiple "careers" and an important addition to the historical record. Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News By Bernard Goldberg. Regnery 323 pages, $27.95 Conservatives in general, and the people at Regnery Publishing in particular, were delighted to see photos of President Bush striding toward his helicopter carrying a copy of Regnery’s book Bias in his hand. The President obviously wanted the world to know that he agreed with the book’s theme: that the news media are largely tilted toward the left. It’s a fact long understood by conservatives and one that has been empirically proven by numerous studies, so in that sense Bias is old news. The novelty of the book is that author Bernard Goldberg was an insider at CBS News for almost 30 years and a reporter and producer with seven Emmy awards to his credit. Moreover, Goldberg is a self-described liberal. He is an honest liberal, however, and a real professional. As he became more and more aware of the liberal mindset that dominated the coverage of the news at CBS, he complained to his colleagues and superiors about it. A hatchet job on Steve Forbes’ flat tax idea in 1996 proved to be the last straw and Goldberg wrote an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal about the bias he had seen. Not surprisingly, this resulted in his ostracism at CBS. In Bias, Goldberg builds on his Journal article, providing numerous examples of bias in the major media, including the hyping of the homeless "crisis" under Reagan and its disappearance under Clinton and the distorted depiction of the AIDS epidemic. He also criticizes the media for their massive celebrity-obsessed coverage of personalities such as O. J., Princess Diana, JonBenet Ramsey and the like, while they ignore or slight major problems and trends of real importance, such as children left alone and unsupervised by parents and the epidemic of pathologies this has produced. Speaking out as he did was an act of great courage for Goldberg and one for which he deserves the gratitude of all who want fairness and objectivity in the news business. Shooting Straight: Telling the Truth About Guns in America By Wayne LaPierre and James Jay Baker. Regnery 214 pages, $27.95 Liberal politicians largely avoided harsh attacks on the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the recent elections because the polls show that they are largely counterproductive, but the left nonetheless continues its assault on "the gun lobby" in a variety of ways, constantly spreading disinformation along the way. Wayne LaPierre is chief executive officer of the NRA and James Baker is the former executive director of its legislative action institute, so this book comes with an understandable pro- NRA bias. But the authors have nonetheless produced a work that talks sense about guns, beginning with solid scholarship about the context of the drafting of the 2nd Amendment and the Founders’ meaning when they spoke of the "right to keep and bear arms." The authors also provide useful statistical evidence about crimes committed with firearms and show which gun laws have reduced crime and which haven’t. Finally they demonstrate why it is important to the American people as a whole—not just to firearms enthusiasts and hunters—that our individual right to keep and bear arms be preserved. Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the Conservative Party By George J. Marlin St Augustine’s Press 434 pages, $28.00 One of the great political success stories of our time was achieved by one of the smallest political parties: the New York State Conservative Party. The party was founded 40 years ago by two irrepressible Irish-Catholic lawyers, Dan Mahoney and Kieran O’Doherty, to help push the N.Y. Republican Party, dominated Nelson Rockefeller-Jacob Javits liberals, to the right, just as the state’s Liberal Party had become an effective instrument of the left by providing a third ballot line for the candidates (mostly Democrats) that it endorsed. After several statewide Conservative candidates ran in 1962 and ’64, the party really became a force to be reckoned with in 1965 when National Review Editor William F. Buckley, Jr. ran as the Conservative Party candidate for mayor of New York. Buckley won 13% of the vote against Democrat Abe Beame and liberal Republican John Lindsay. He campaigned on a conservative reform platform of stronger law enforcement, welfare reform, tax cuts and lower government spending, all articulated with Buckley’s trademark wit and panache. The party increased it membership ten-fold by 1970 when it achieved its greatest victory—the election of Buckley’s brother James as U.S. senator from New York. Many successes followed, including the defeat of Jacob Javits by Al D’Amato in 1980—the same year that party hero Ronald Reagan won the presidency. Over the last two decades, Conservative Party influence has waned a bit as the New York GOP has elected more conservative candidates. Nonetheless, the Conservative Party remains on the scene, a constant reminder to the state’s Republicans that a leftward lurch could have terrible consequences at the polls. Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith By Robert Spencer. Encounter Books 214 pages, $24.95 In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, American leaders from President Bush on down have been adamant in their insistence that Osama bin Laden and his fellow Islamic terrorists are traitors to the religion they profess. Islam, we are told, means peace, compassion and mercy—the very antithesis of bin Laden’s bloodthirsty creed. As Robert Spencer spells out in this book, however, this is not necessarily so. A student of Islam for 20 years, Spencer is fluent in Arabic and knows Islam’s holy text, the Qur’an (Koran) intimately. With this background and a through knowledge of the history of Islam, he makes some disturbing revelations and asks some pointed questions. He points out for starters that Islam does not mean "peace," it means "submission"—and that submission brought about by the sword is countenanced by the Qur’an and has been practiced repeatedly by Muslims since the time of Muhammad. Spencer quotes the Qur’an often on this matter. For example: "Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home; an evil fate." (Sura 9.73) Thus 1,400 years later, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini can say with perfect justification that "Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the unit of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world." Thus it is not surprising, Spencer says, that fighting and terrorist acts flare up constantly along the periphery of the entire Muslim world. Spencer also lays out many of the unsavory characteristics of Islamic societies—the subjugation of women, the total lack of a concept of human rights, the countenancing of slavery, the cruel application of Islamic law and so on. Nonetheless, he argues, the religion has enormous appeal in the Third World and is growing rapidly. The Wahhabi form of militant Islam practiced by Osama bin Laden and his fellow terrorists also enjoys great support in the Muslim world, including the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and, as the author points out, bin Laden’s terrorists have not been condemned by many Islamic leaders—and in fact have been endorsed by a number of them. The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families By James Q. Wilson Harper Collins 274 pages, $25.95 Renowned social scientist James Q. Wilson has long been a leading analyst of problems plaguing American society—most notably crime, where his views have had a major impact on public policy. (New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for instance, followed Wilson’s advice to ruthlessly crack down on pan-handling, vagrancy and other petty crimes, the idea being that a city rife with petty crime creates an environment where serious crime flourishes. New York City, as recent visitors know, has been greatly improved by Wilson’s prescriptions, as administered by Giuliani.) In his latest book, Wilson discusses the disastrous weakening of the marriage bond that has produced a soaring divorce rate and an explosion in the number of co-habiting couples and fatherless homes. Relying, characteristically on solid empirical data, Wilson lists the resulting pathologies—more sexually transmitted disease, depression, suicide, abortion, crime, physical abuse of women, etc. The problem is particularly acute in the inner cities, he writes, because such a large percentage of young black males are in prison or die young from disease, alcoholism, drugs or murder that the vast majority of children are raised in homes without fathers. The same grim pattern is increasingly manifest in the predominately white suburbs, he points out, all of which portends a collapse of the traditional family—the fundamental foundation of our society. Unfortunately Wilson’s acute analysis is not followed by an equally compelling prescription for reform beyond saying that American society must find ways to strengthen marriage. Mission Compromised By Oliver North, with Joe Musser Broadman and Holman 640 pages, $24.99 Oliver North, now a Radio America talk show host and the author of two best-selling non-fiction books, has entered the field of the novel with Mission Compromised. And a very credible effort it is. In exciting fashion, the book tells the story of Marine Corps Maj. Pete Newman, special projects officer for the Clinton Administration’s National Security Council. Newman’s task is to set up a team, in conjunction with a high-ranking Russian official at the United Nations, to take out terrorist threats such as Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Newman is a man of conscience and, as he struggles bravely to accomplish his mission, he finds his work compromised by Washington intrigue, deceit, political turf battles, and even treason. Not surprising, given North’s strong Christian faith, religion also plays an important role in this book, as Maj. Newman and his wife see the transforming power of faith amidst very trying circumstances. This is a well-done political thriller that, although fiction, is relevant to the current crisis in the Mideast and sounds a warning about the dangers of working with the UN—and Americans who do not put their country first. Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right By Ann Coulter Crown 256 pages, $25.95 Abandoning the even-handed approach scrupulously applied thus far, let me say that my favorite conservative book of 2002 is Ann Coulter’s Slander. A Mencken in a mini-skirt, this brassy blonde displays a talent for writing wickedly witty prose, and skewering objects of scorn not seen since the Sage of Baltimore assailed the "booboisie" and other favorite targets in the 1920s. (Coulter’s column appears weekly in HUMAN EVENTS.) Unlike Mencken, whose political views were difficult to discern, Coulter is unambiguously conservative and her targets are liberals of all races, genders and ages. Like a kid with a video game ray gun, she zaps them by the hundreds in lethal bursts of rhetoric. A couple of samples: "The liberal catechism includes a hatred of Christians, guns, the profit motive, and political speech and an infatuation with abortion, the environment, and race discrimination (or in the favored parlance of liberals ‘affirmative action’). Heresy on any of these subjects is, well, heresy. The most crazed religious fanatic argues in more calm and reasoned tones than liberals responding to statistics on concealed-carry permits." "We read letters to the editor of the New York Times from pathetic little parakeet males and grim, quivering, angry women on the Upper West Side of Manhattan hoping to be chosen as that day’s purveyor of hate. These letters are about one step above Tiger Beat magazine in intellectual engagement. They are never responsive, they never include clever ripostes or attacks; they merely restate the position of the Times with greater venom." And so it goes, page after page, crackling with explosive wit and devastating deconstruction of liberal "logic." Logic, Coulter writes, is in such short supply on the left that liberals have to rely on name-calling and ad hominem attacks. Coulter, on the other hand, is a rigorous logician and frequently delights the reader by pinning down liberal canards and dissecting them. "In numerous campaign speeches," she writes, "Gore said Bush’s pledge to appoint ‘strict constructionists’ to the court—such as Scalia and Thomas—reminded him of ‘the strictly constructionist meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written and how some people were considered three-fifths of a human being.’ "If you were one of the swing voters waiting to see which of the candidates supported slavery, at least Gore had cleared up the confusion. The man was actually demagoguing slavery. . . . Gore’s implication that it would have been nicer if slaves had counted as full persons in the Constitution is the pro-slavery position. Since the three-fifths clause refers only to congressional apportionment, counting slaves as full persons would have given the slave-holding South more votes in Congress." Liberal politicians, media personalities, Hollywood actors and producers, academics and liberals of all stripes are lined up in Ann’s sights and systematically dispatched. Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism By Sean Hannity. HarperCollins 338 pages, $25.95 With this book, another of America’s leading talk show hosts has added the pen to the microphone as a means of disseminating his views to the public. Joining Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly—and soon followed by Gordon Liddy (see below)—as an author, Sean Hannity has enjoyed a meteoric rise in both cable television ("Hannity and Colmes" on the Fox News Channel) and talk radio (on ABC). His book, like his television and radio shows, reflects his ethnic New York City background—a blunt, tough-talking street-corner conservative with a nice touch of Irish wit. He has a dual focus: winning the war against terrorism abroad and winning the cultural and political war against liberalism at home. Reflecting his media style, the book is fast paced and punchy, covering a wide variety of topics, including his boyhood in The Bronx, education, politics, defense, and cultural issues. All in all, a compelling performance reflective of the appeal of talk radio’s hottest new star. When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country By G. Gordon Liddy Regnery 236 pages, $27.95 Here are the opinions of another conservative talk show giant: G. Gordon Liddy. It, too, is an extension of the author’s personality, by turns, erudite, blunt-spoken, amusing, quirky—all qualities that have endeared the "G-man" to millions of listeners. The book begins with a visit to Normandy with a D-Day veteran. Hearkening back to the time "when I was a kid and this was a great country," Liddy nostalgically evokes the qualities of a better time. Much of the ensuing discussion concerns freedoms that he maintains we have lost—or are in the process of losing—from the right to keep and bear arms to freedom of speech. In the first half of the book he covers many of the issues also discussed by Hannity—education, the military, environment, etc.—and does so in a persuasive if conventionally conservative manner. More interesting are the chapters in which he offers advice—the superiority of being a "prevailer" over a "survivor," for instance, or his chapter on men and women. The analysis of the war between the sexes and his prescriptions for marital felicity make for truly entertaining (and occasionally ribald) reading. The last section of the book, tracing his feud with John Dean, whom he blames for the Watergate fiasco, is fascinating stuff. What’s So Great About America By Dinesh D’Souza Regnery 256 pages, $27.95 As many have done before, Dinesh D’Souza here extols the unique virtues of America, but he does it with a fresh insight born of his experience as an immigrant to this country. D’Souza, who is a native of India, loves his adopted country with a passion that radiates throughout the pages of this book. The American experiment, he claims, represents a new way to be human. Before the founding of the American republic, he points out, nations were organized around a defining language, ethnicity or religion. In America, on the other hand, the founders consciously set out to create a new kind of order in which adherence to American ideas and to the idea of being an American is the unifying principle. In many ways—such as outlawing titles of nobility, forbidding the establishment of a state church, asserting that "all men are created equal," limiting sharply the power of government—the founders made freedom and equality their guiding precepts. Secondly, he writes, the environment of liberty that they created fostered the growth of a vigorous economy that over time gave the average citizen a measure of economic prosperity not previously found in any other nation. There is a downside to the American story, too, D’Souza writes. The great premium placed on individual liberty, he believes, has spawned in our time the notion that the individual is the sole arbiter of moral questions. This results in a self-centered ethos whose obligations to spouse, children, the unborn—Christian morality—are downplayed or abandoned. This, D’Souza says, does not bode well for the future unless corrective measures are taken. Ever optimistic, however, D’Souza believes that our resilient people will find a way to get back on course. Always Right: Selected Writings of Midge Decter By Midge Decter The Heritage Foundation 165 pages, $9.95 The title of this book is not quite accurate from a philosophical point of view since there was a time, back a few decades, when Midge Decter was on the left side of the political spectrum. In the 1960s she and her husband Norman Podhoretz began a movement to the right that eventually resulted in their "breaking ranks" (the title of a book by Podhoretz). For the past two decades, Midge Decter has been a solid conservative in almost every sense—an advocate of traditional values, a defender of the free market, ardently anti-Communist in foreign policy and anti-liberal in domestic politics. During this period she has served as a member of the board of directors of the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank, and this collection of her speeches and essays was published by Heritage. Always Right consists of 14 briskly written chapters on a variety of subjects, from family to foreign policy, from philosophy to feminism. Each chapter brims with searching analysis, pithy formulations and plain common sense. Here is Decter on feminism: "Any movement which offers an explanation for people’s difficulties that has nothing whatever to do with them, and that requires no assumption of responsibility on their part, is bound to be very soothing." And on the family: "Families are not something good, like chocolate cake, families are absolutely necessary. They are necessary not to make you happy but to make you human." Having read this book, most conservatives will, I think, agree that Decter is, in fact, "always right." That is, she writes what we believe—only she says it better.
