The American Spectator

Books in Review

Nixonland Revisited

By Tom Charles Huston from the November 2008 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Reason’s David Weigel in reviewing Nixonland heralded Perlstein as “America’s best living historian of the conservative movement.” Such a claim not only insults George Nash and Greg Schneider, but it libels the craft of history. Nixonland is not history; it is polemics. Perlstein is out to poke Republicans (and conservatives) in the eye and “history” is his stick.

He shapes it to suit his purpose and wields it to achieve a political objective. No Perlstein “fact” can be relied upon as true, no event he relates can be assumed to be fairly discussed, and no grand idea advanced by him can be taken seriously. Perlstein is an ideological warrior who, having donned his war paint and put on his war bonnet, is leading (with Tom Frank) a war party of hard-core leftists against the political and cultural settlements occupied by the right. He’s after scalps, one at a time. Nixon is easy pickings; Reagan will be tougher, but he is next. Perhaps after that raid, conservatives (if not libertarians) will begin to figure out that this guy is up to no good.

Tom Charles Huston is an attorney in Indianapolis and was associate counsel to the president of the United States from 1969 to 1971.

Letter to the Editor