Free Republic

June 21, 2006 An A-to-Z Book of Conservatism Now Weighs In By JASON DePARLE WASHINGTON, June 20 — It has red states and blond pundits; home schoolers and The Human Life Review; originalists, monetarists, federalists and evangelists; and no shortage of people named Kristol. Now American conservatism can claim another mark of distinction: an encyclopedia all its own. It is a big deal, in terms literal — 997 pages — and metaphorical. Few insults have stung the movement's thinkers as much as the barb from Lionel Trilling, the literary critic, who said conservatives had no ideas, "just irritable mental...

<p>When President Bush signed a ban on partial-birth abortion yesterday, it marked the first congressional rollback of Roe v. Wade since the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion was handed down in 1973. And it marked the success of an idea as well. The idea, of course, is that abortion is inhuman and should be limited as sharply as possible and ultimately outlawed altogether.</p>

<p>Liberals have their pantheon of presidents, established by the New Deal historians. "Great presidents," in their view, are those who expand the size and scope of the federal government in the interest of the masses against the interests of the classes. By this criterion Franklin Roosevelt is one of the greatest presidents, in a line that includes Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson.</p>