Impromptus today is devoted to a “Dallas Journal.” I say a fair amount in this journal, but I’d like to say a little more, because my fingers are itching. I’d like to follow up — just like Helen Thomas at a Reagan press conference. (Well, not just like.)

In the course of my jottings, I mention Dallas’s Robert E. Lee Park. And I say, “Hmmmm. I really don’t think of Texas as having been part of the Confederacy. I know I should. But, strangely, I don’t. I should pause to analyze why someday.”

Well, I’ve thought about it for a second or two. I guess I don’t consider Texas southern, and I equate the Confederacy with the South, which is not inaccurate, but just a little sloppy. (And I realize that East Texas is decidedly southern — in its speech, for one thing.)

I also say something about a Mexican restaurant — where the salsa is just right. I have a further reflection to give you. And it will be “hate speech.” La Raza may send death squads to my door. The Wise Latina and her friends on the Court may imprison me. (How will Kennedy vote?) Okay, here goes:

I have spent many, many hours of my life studying Mexican menus, agonizing over what to order. (Mexican is one of my two or three favorite cuisines.) And the truth is: It all comes out pretty much the same, doesn’t it?

Before the goons arrive, I have time for one more follow-up, I think:

In my journal, I write about Bill Buckley and his largeness, his flexibility, his freedom from ideology or dogmatism. He was like Whitman, containing multitudes, sometimes contradicting himself, etc.

WFB had countless exchanges with readers, and he published many of them, but I think my favorite of all time went something like this: A lady wrote in to say, “You and NR are getting too complicated for me these days. By the time I’m through reading you, I don’t know whether you’re for or against.” WFB responded, “Sorry for the confusion, madam: We’re against.”

There is some deep truth about conservatism in that answer.

And yet, of course, we are for some things — many things — and against some things (many things). Conservatism, in its largeness, is both affirmative and negative. We say yea, yea, and nay, nay.

And now that I’m quotin’ Scripture, I really ought to leave. See you!