Leo Strauss's discoveries in the history of political philosophy had the effect of liberating his students from the yoke of contemporary thought.

I personally - if I were designing the tax code - would have a tax code in which Mitt Romney paid more than 13 percent, given what I know about the kind of investments he made money from.

I think there was a moment in the middle part of the century into the 60s, 70s when at least elite journalism claimed to be non-partisan. You can go back and look at it and wonder about how non-partisan it was.

What's more important than the media, there's this thing called ObamaCare, which was President Obama's signature domestic achievement. It won Republicans the House in 2014 - 2010. It won Republicans the Senate in 2014.

Since Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, conservatives of various sorts, and conservatisms of various stripes, have generally been in the ascendancy. And a good thing, too! Conservatives have been right more often than not - and more often than liberals - about most of the important issues of the day.

Many of Bush's defenders have praised him for keeping the country safe since Sept. 11, 2001. He deserves that praise, and I'm perfectly happy to defend most of his surveillance, interrogation and counterterrorism policies against his critics.

Lest conservatives be too proud, it's worth recalling that conservatism's rise was decisively enabled by liberalism's weakness.