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Dad?! my teenage daughters face reflected a queasy mixture of surprise and instinctive revulsion. Is it true? Are you really a . . . Republican?
She uttered the word as if it were a deadly disease that she could catch just by naming it. Im a conservative, I corrected her.
But are you really going to vote for . . . George Bush?
I had never spoken to Lily about my politicsnor about my strange and eventful journey from Upper West Side liberal to neoconservative culture warrior. For a long time she was simply too young, and when she got older I hadnt wanted to impose my views on her. Soon enough, I figured, she would realize that my ideas were out of step with those of her friends and her friends parents, and she would come to me on her own.
Of course, this had meant standing by while she was indoctrinated into the politically correct outlook that prevailed in her tony private school. Ironically, she was in the same position I had been in at her age: an earnest young person, raised in an atmosphere of unconscious liberal conformity, who had just begun to realize that not all the vital questions have been settled.
Now at last I would have to explain how I had become a conservative, the role I had played in the conservative intellectual revolt, and what it was like to be a conservative in a city (New York) and a profession (publishing) that were known for their liberalism.
Its certainly true that I have long been associated with conservatives, and have published many books by right-wing authorsfrom Cold Warriors like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, to midlife converts like David Horowitz and Victor Davis Hanson, to rising Young Turks like David Frum and Jonah Goldberg. My circle of acquaintances includes the editors of every right-wing magazine, as well as the staffs of major think tanks and foundations, and dozens of academics, columnists, radio hosts, and bloggers. The books I have published include some of the most notorious tomes of the past decade, including Illiberal Education, by Dinesh DSouza; The Real Anita Hill, by David Brock; and The Bell Curve, by Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein.
In short, I have a well-earned reputation as a right-wing controversialist and hell-raiser. Yet I never considered myself a Republican and have always been somewhat vague about my politics. Even David Brock, with whom I worked closely on two books, couldnt quite figure me out. I was never certain about Adams commitment to conservatism, he wrote in Blinded by the Right, concluding, Whether I detected . . . a lack of sincerity, or whether he was more subtle in expressing his views than my friends in Washington, didnt really matter to me because I had enough fire in the belly for us both.
