Tough and Tender

Here's a reader review of "The Conservative Soul" I got this morning:

The Conservative Soul got me rather disappointed and irritated initially. There was enough psychobabble in the first few chapters to shame a West Hollywood Marriage and Family Counseling trainee. Honestly, if I had read the word "denial" one more time I would have thrown the book at the first Methodist anti-war activist I saw Sunday morning, but, grimly, I read on. I understood you had to "define your opponent" as the political consultants say it, but I hoped for so much more from a man of your intellect, training and experience. I felt the book growing old and time-bound with every turn of the page.

Then, I got to the latter chapters. This is what I wanted to know, and your love letter to America was thrilling. I felt and respected your authority, as I had needed and expected to, in your definition of a conservative. I will never be as erudite as you in this matter, but I have read enough books and taken enough classes and even distinguished myself, however infinitesimally, in scholarship sufficiently to know the real thing when I see it.

Here you truly excelled, soared even as one of those banned kites in Afghanistan, and I grabbed hold and went along for the ride, avidly and enthusiastically. Thank you for this achievement. I will ponder and use your arguments in my own discussions as I test them against my own experience and others' opinions. I will recommend your book to my friends and family (with a caveat regarding patience until one finally gets to the meat of the matter). I think it's deplorable that the current keepers of the temple of conservative orthodoxy can't see how deeply they are in, er,...denial.  Perhaps someone will throw your book at a few of them.

A friend of mine somewhat surprised me after reading the book when I asked him what he thought of it. He said simply: "It made me feel more patriotic." The book is really a love-letter to my adopted country, what it has taught me, and why I am so passionate about not damaging the core conservative genius of America.

You can buy it here and here; and details for getting a personally signed copy for yourself or as a Christmas gift can be found here.