Carl Bogus, author of an upcoming biography of Bill Buckley, offers his impressions of iconic conservative works. On Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind:
Kirk argued that Burkeanism “is the true school of conservative principle,” and I happen to be an admirer of Edmund Burke. Indeed, I consider myself a liberal Burkean. If you think “liberal Burkean” is an oxymoron, you have never read Kirk, who repeatedly — convincingly — contends, in both The Conservative Mind and his biography of Edmund Burke, that Burke was both a conservative and a liberal. Anyone who appreciates the complexity of the world realizes that, to be truly wise, a philosophy must somehow embrace the best sentiments of both conservatism and liberalism.
Which is also, of course, the genius of Oakeshott. This wise, prudential blending of the two great Western political traditions is what conservatives of my ilk believe in. Not all liberals are wicked; there is much in conservative thought that is profound and important. There is no space for this in the current American atmosphere, poisoned primarily by anti-government fanatics terrified by modernity. Watching an actual conservative, Obama, being savaged and brutalized by them makes me want to look away.
The Dish 