Nick says, of Terry Teachout: “A lot of conservatives give lip service to

the importance of the arts, but don’t know Howell Raines from Picasso (wait

a minute, maybe Howell Raines doesn’t know Howell Raines from Picasso).

Either way, for cultural trogs (like me), Teachout is a godsend.” Let me

tell you, Nick, from long experience, that there is a proud philistine

faction among conservatives, certainly among NRO readers. Any time I blog

about my encounters with high art (encounters of which, be it noted, high

art generally gets the better) I get emails from readers telling me that

this stuff is for the fairies (you can take that any way you like) and that

a robust commercial republic of free citizens doesn’t need poetry, classical

music, or any of that sissy stuff–just guns, liquor, attitude and a banjo.

(I think that’s what they’re saying.) Obviously I don’t agree with this

myself, but it’s a point of view, and if you blog on NRO you better be ready

for it. It’s not entirely wrong-headed, either. Robert Conquest notes

somewhere that Tsar Nicholas of Russia went to the opera while Disraeli went

to the races; then he asks rhetorically: “Which country was better

governed?”