RUSSELL KIRK, the last great metaphysician of America’s Old Testament Right, was fond of repeating H. Stuart Hughes’s observation that conservatism is the “negation of ideology.” After all, it is the Jacobins and their modern-day heirs who are responsible for the exhausting notion that every act, every purchase, every syllable should carry the full weight of “the cause.” So many Leftists, and too many conservatives, believe that the kind of music you listen to-or even the kind of pizza you eat-must carry the full intellectual freight of your ideology. I disagree. I’m proud to say that I dislike Wal-Mart—even though the Left does also. I enjoy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, even though Ben and Jerry are little better than hypocritical tie-dyed Stalinists.
And I love Budweiser, the King of Beers. I admit it without shame or reservation. I love how it tastes. I love it ice-cold, not petri-dish warm like some foreign swill. I prefer it in a bottle. But a can or draught will do just fine if the alternative is some wheaty garbage that tastes like a bran muffin drenched in old tea. Budweiser tastes clean, pure, and crisp. Budweiser is the best conductor of that electrical charge to your brain that comes with that first swallow of beer after a long day. Budweiser does not vary in quality from coast to coast or pole to pole-and is available everywhere in between. Yes, Budweiser-just call him “Bud”-is your loyal friend in any port, at any time. Indeed, Bud’s standards are so exacting and its convenience so universal that it’s the most reliable beverage in the world-soft drinks and water included (cola changes with the culture, and fish still copulate in water, as W. C. Fields pointed out long ago). To paraphrase Homer Simpson-after his wife blew his chance at a million bucks-
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