A new encyclopedia of conservatism decides some notable right-wing loudmouths aren’t worth mentioning. Who? Oh, people like Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove. Nobody important.
Reports The New York Times:
Those people toiling in the capital trenches may not recognize the conservatism represented here. The book omits familiar names like Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove.
It includes the journals University Bookman, circulation 2,600, and First Things. It gives Willmoore Kendall, a political scientist who died in 1967, three times as much ink as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Those proportions are appropriate, said a former student of Mr. Kendall, William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of National Review, who called the reference book "terrific."
"Newt came and went rather fast but didn’t leave hard fingerprints," Mr. Buckley said. "The quote, unquote conservative politicians have a pretty short lifetime in encyclopedia usage.
Now that’s what we call good editing.
