Craig Shirley Reagan biographer and president, Shirley and Banister Public Affairs :
On another topic: "These are the times that try conservatives souls."
Someone needs to tell Michael Steele that Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson are the founders of modern American conservatism and not Edmund Burke, as he suggested in his speech yesterday to the Republican National Committee. Burke once wrote that he looked up “with awe at kings” and further believed in the inherited powers of nobility, antithetical to populist conservatism. Burke was the father of Tory conservatism, which is worlds apart from American right of center thought.
Burke despised Paine, who believed man should be in a constant state of revolution, always challenging the status quo. Burke regarded Paine as a vulgarian because he believed power flowed upwards from the people to government, the government was beholden to the people who put them into power, and not the other way around.
Steele was right about the role of Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley. He was wrong about Burke.
These are the times that try conservatives souls.