Book Review: The Conservative Soul

Andrew Sullivan, prolific blogger and former editor at the New Republic, wrote this book as a clarion call to paleo-cons and Eisenhower Republicans about the current state of "conservatism" in America. Sullivan starts with a quick bio of himself as a gay, yet conservative commentator, who waxes poetic about the Silver Age of conservatism during the heyday of Reaganism/Thatcherism of the early 80's.

Sullivan then steps through the current fundamentalist focus of the GOP and the intertwining of the Religious Right with "conservatism" and then arrives at the Bush presidency as the natural
outcome of this consciously directed strategy. Although I find the discussion of the rise of the Religious Right to be sparse and better handled by Kevin Phillips in his American Theocracy, it is still adequate for the thesis Sullivan is laying out.

Sullivan also reflects on the development of conservative thought, from Burke onwards, and the underlying pessimism that it entails on the human condition. Sullivan also emphasizes the importance on not only the results of a policy but also the means that the results were achieved. This is where Sullivan truly hammers on the current administration and political mindset of the current "conservative" banner holders today. Its how Bush and his allies, in achieving their policy goals, trash the very mechanisms of our government. As examples, Sullivan cites signing statements and the use of selective intelligence to justify our intervention in Iraq. Sullivan also uses this occasion of Iraq to make a mea culpa, befitting his devout Catholicism, on his own initial support of the President.

Sullivan wraps up with a discussion of his personal hero, Michael Oakeshott, and how Oakeshott's thinking shaped his own conservatism.

In closing, I found Sullivan's writing accessible and entertaining. My impression was that of a intellectual lamenting about the current state of what really is a radical political culture that has co-opted the "conservative" banner...

Cato Institute Forum on the Book with David Brooks