I’ve gotten a few emails from readers upset that NRO praised Moynihan in several obits. I can understand why some — if not many — conservatives had problems with Moynihan as a Senator. He voted liberal in order to keep his New York seat even when his votes ran against the spirit, if not the text, of his work as an intellectual. That’s fair criticism. But Moynihan was also a brilliant intellectual and statesman and a thoroughly decent man. Regardless, if you think National Review Online is straying from conservative orthodoxy in some way by saluting this man upon the occassion of his death, I would simply note that we are hardly alone. See today’s column by Robert Novak, or last Friday’s columns by George Will and Michael Barone (in the WSJ).