1. Also appearing in the most recent PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE is a most relevant and insightful article by one of our country’s most distinguished public intellectuals, Irving Louis Horowitz: “Legalism as an Executive Ideology: Foundations of Barack Obama’s Leadership Style” AND Justin Dyer’s “Revisiting Dred Scott : Prudence, Providence, and the Limits of Judicial Statesmanship.” According to Dyer, “By wedding self-evident truths in the Declaration to a providentially ordered universe and by making natural rights derivative of the image of God in man, the very logic of American constitutionalism was given a theological meaning.” Connecting this well-supported insight to what I said about David Walsh above, we can see why Chesterton was such a big admirer of Lincoln and why liberal theory [such as the Declaration’s self-evident paragraph], in the hands of the poetic statesman, is shown, as Walsh says, to be better than it knows.
2. You will be able to pick up a sample copy of PPS at the Routledge booth as the APSA meeting. My MODERN AND AMERICAN DIGNITY isn’t out yet, but it will be very soon. And I can’t figure out why more of you haven’t taken advantage of the pre-publication special ($17.79 for a beautiful hardback) on AMAZON. I will have to shamelessly self-promote its contents soon.
3. Someone has asked why I haven’t made GLENN BECK a strange and stupid conservative trend. Well, for one thing, Glenn is strange but not stupid. (Sarah Palin is not even particularly strange and not stupid—although still fairly ignorant and inexperienced [and remarkably savvy].) Do I think Glenn is the great founder of some civic theological, libertarian, Founderistic, anti-Progressive movement to restore America’s honor, trust, treasure, etc.? No. Do I think DIVINE PROVIDENCE guided him to choose the day on which to hold his rally? No. Do I think it’s a great idea to attempt to refocus the inspiration of MLK and the Civil Rights Movement away from the injustices done to African-Americans and towward the oppression we all suffer from a century of Progressive dominance? No. Do I think Glenn exaggerates—sometimes in a creepy way—the conspiratorial evildoing of President Obama, Progressives, liberals, and people who use “social justice” in a sentence. Yes. Do I think the New Deal was basically unconstitutional? No. Can I stand to watch his show? No. Do I think I’m better than him because I’m a refined postmodern conservative who’s completely ineffectual? No. Do I share many of the concerns of many of his followers? Yes. Do I think refined and religious conservatives should stop whining about him and realize he’s filling a vacuum created by the absence of better conservative popular leadership. Yes. Do I know how many people really showed up for his rally? No. Do I care? No. Do I think the mainstream media is lowballing the number? Yes.
