I received many, many insightful and generally positive e-mails about my post on Glenn Beck’s connection to the Bircher W. Cleon Skousen. I thank you Cornerites for them as always.

The vast majority of e-mails came from fans of Beck who were nevertheless worried about his tendency to drift into the conspiratorial. But some readers came after me — more or less thoughtfully — for picking a fight with an ally. From one of the more thoughtful e-mails:

Let’s not inflame our differences with pointless accusations describing our political imperfections. What is the point, except to divide us from those who agree with ourselves most of the time? For example, I could mope over how I disagree with Chamber’s [sic] (and Buckley’s) snobby critique of Atlas Shrugged, vow to never read NR, and forever hold a scent of disdain for the journal. But then I would have missed such greatness and insight in NR over the years.

Well said. It is important to consider our occasional disagreements against the background of our shared convictions. Indeed, that is what I was trying to do with the post.

One other note. Many readers and a few famous conservatives (forgive me, I still geek out when I get e-mails like that) wrote me in defense of Skousen’s 5,000 Year Leap, which by their accounts is a worthy love letter to the Founders and free of the paranoia that marked much of his other work. I have not read it — yet. But I will.

UPDATE: To respond to some new e-mails, I do not agree with the reader that Chambers’ critique of Ayn Rand was “snobby” (and indeed, can’t imagine a review snobby enough to out-snobby Rand), but that was not the point of my printing that excerpt.