A new book has moved to the top of your fall term reading list: Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great American Political Movement Got Lost--and How It Can Find Its Way Back by Mickey Edwards.  I picked it up after seeing Edwards appear on Bill Moyers Journal (watch it here).  In this interview, he posed a simple question for people like me who fancy themselves to be conservatives, "How did the Republican Party get from 1964 to here?"

It is a question that is well answered in the book, placing much of the blame on the failure of Republicans in the Congressional majorities to provide the effective check on the Bush administration as mandated by the Constitution.  As the title indicates, there are proscriptions for reclaiming conservatism.  They are:

1. Remember that we are a religious people but a secular nation.
2. Reject the destructive legacy of Newt Gingrich.
3. Re-embrace the commitment to "peace through strength."
4. Support rational federal spending limits.
5. Issue a new declaration of independence.
6. Rethink the attitude toward government.
7. Reexamine basic values.
8. Reread the Constitution.

Read the whole thing.