A reader: “Thanks for your work on NRO, including yesterday’s column: I

disagreed with it, but I love the fact that NRO publishes a piece like yours

AND O’Sullivan’s within days of one another. It’s encouraging for a

conservative to see that sort of thing.”

The first thing I ever asked the NR editors when I started writing for them

was: Does the magazine have a “line”? Other than being broadly

conservative, I mean. Is there a checklist? Certain books I should read?

No, they told me, just say what you think. Conservatives can disagree.

So I have found it. We do indeed disagree about all kinds of things. (On

capital punishment, for e.g., I think there’s a pretty even split.)

Nothing’s broken out into a fist-fight yet, though I keep my knuckle wraps

handy; but withing the tradition of Buckleian-American conservatism, we

speak our minds. And that’s how it should be.