I found a link to this very long essay on AL Daily. I don’t know much about the author and the piece itself is much better than I’d expected. But there’s nothing in it that shakes me from my general conviction that commentary about the evil influence of Leo Strauss on American politics is almost never worth reading. The upshot seems to be that Straussian rhetoric has infected contemporary liberalism making it more hostile to democracy. The usual dot-connections between supposed Straussian administration officials (who when they are not Straussians are Trotskyites) and the war on terror are presented, again.

Maybe it’s because I’m halfway through Richard Wolin’s excellent book, The Seduction of Unreason which chronicles the Left’s forty year infatuation with fascist thinking and opposition to all the principles of the enlightenment but I just have no patience with liberals who bitch and moan about the damage Leo Strauss wrought. When the academy is overrun with disciples of Heiddegger and Foucault, the idea that Leo Strauss posed the major threat to democratic principles is so brain-poundingly stupid it drives me to distraction. Foucault supported the Islamic Revolution in Iran for pete’s sake. Maybe you should get your own houses in order before you scapegoat a scholar most college students and virtually all journalists know nothing about.