books.5-9.qxp 4/19/2005 9:21 AM Page 46 world—the blogosphere, right-wing talk Another character explains early in the SHELF LIFE radio, Fox News, and so on—conser- book: “We wish to be worthy of being vatism is finally getting a fair hearing, and saved . which is another way of saying is winning the battle for the American that we, every one of us, whether we The Liberals mind. Writes Anderson: “Liberals yearn know it or not, wish to be our own god, for the good old days when everybody that is, to save ourselves. We want par- who didn’t read National Review had to adise without his Cross, forgetting that the Killed Kenny! get his news and analysis from ‘unbiased’ Cross is the only way to reenter the origi- old-media sources like CBS and the New nal harmony we lost in the Fall of Man. York Times and conservative arguments This is the narrow gate.” (A concise and could be dismissed with an insult or, bet- engaging explanation of the doctrine of ter still, simply ignored.” Those days are justification by faith.) over. While it would be an overstatement To quote more from the book would to say conservatives have won the culture be to risk convincing potential readers war, it is undeniable that—in that it’s merely a religious tract Anderson’s words—“the Right dressed up as fiction. Rest is no longer losing.” assured: Sophia House works MICHAEL POTEMRA as a thriller—a human drama— Anyone looking for a splen- as well as a novel of ideas. It’s HATE conservatives,” says South did novel that grapples seriously actually a prequel to an earlier Park co-creator Matt Stone, “but with religious ideas would do O’Brien novel, the 1996 Father I really f****** hate liberals.” well to seek out Sophia House Elijah: An Apocalypse (Ignatius, ‘I Some conservatives—those of (Ignatius, 488 pp., $24.95), by 597 pp., $14.95), which is one of us who are a little older, perhaps, and Michael D. O’Brien. The plot is decep- the most suspenseful books I have ever remember when liberals ran absolutely tively simple: A heroic Polish bookseller read. The subject of Father Elijah is the everything, from law and government to hides a young Jew from the Nazis while End Times; readers of the multi-million- the media and the overall culture—are wrestling with his own sexual cravings. selling Left Behind series might be inter- grateful for comments like this one, But the book’s themes are broad, grip- ested to see that subject discussed from a because they demonstrate just how ping, and intelligently handled; O’Brien’s Roman Catholic perspective, and others far into the mainstream conservatism has concern is nothing less than the meaning will enjoy the book as a thriller on the progressed. The irreverent libertarianism of love, sin, fatherhood, and redemp- same high level as Sophia House. of TV’s South Park mocks left-wing tion, and his eschatological vision is shibboleths, as with the following ditty: compelling. Those inclined to romanticize a past “There’s a place called the rain forest that In the course of their long (and consis- Golden Age of journalism would do well truly sucks a**. / Let’s knock it all down tently fascinating) conversations, Pawel, to read Laurel Leff’s new book, Buried by and get rid of it fast. / You only fight the bookseller, explains to David, his The Times: The Holocaust and America’s these causes ’cause caring sells. / All you young charge, the Christian understand- Most Important Newspaper (Cambridge, activists can go f*** yourselves.” This is ing of Christ’s Incarnation. “He came 426 pp., $29). Leff is a former reporter for conservatism as insurgent counterculture, among us,” says Pawel, “to teach us that the Wall Street Journal and the Miami a movement showing exactly the same we are greater than we conceive ourselves Herald, now on the faculty at Northeastern kind of cheeky spunk that gave Sixties to be. Each person is his icon. To burn University; her book is a realistic account liberals their cultural advantage back in even one, to hurt even the least of how bias is always capable the day; that this energy is now on the of human beings, is to assault of subverting the telling of right speaks volumes about the political God. He shows us his face, and important stories. In the 1940s, transformation of the U.S. in recent years. to our shock it is a human face.” the New York Times consistently In his breezy new book, South Park This idea is made real in the downplayed what hindsight Conservatives: The Revolt against Liberal book’s narrative, and especially would judge to be a crucial story Media Bias (Regnery, 191 pp., $24.95), in its remarkable final chapter. of the 20th century. “The Times’s City Journal senior editor Brian C. During the novel’s dénouement, first story on the Nazi extermin- Anderson uses the South Park phenome- Pawel reflects: “Had not every ation campaign [against the non as metaphor for a broader cultural father once been a child, each suffering Jews], which described it as ‘the greatest movement away from the stifling old lib- in turn those blows and absences that mass slaughter in history,’ appeared on eral orthodoxies. (He credits blogger chained all souls, link by link, back into page five,” writes Leff, “yet the deaths of Andrew Sullivan with coining the phrase the shadows of time? What, then, would other civilians, often fewer than 100, reg- “South Park Republicans,” to describe break the link? What would turn a man’s ularly appeared on the front page.” Why? Americans who are hawkish on foreign vision from the dictates of the past toward One reason was the assimilationist striv- policy and “extremely skeptical of politi- the future?” ings of Times publisher Arthur Hays cal correctness” but also have social- The answer is: only the irruption of Sulzberger. Faced with an America just liberal leanings.) In the new-media pure divine grace into the fallen world. starting to emerge from a culture of iso- 46 N ATIONAL R EVIEW/MAY 9, 2005.