I was struck by the first three sentences of David Brooks' most recent New York Times column:

Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context.

Brooks then descends into a didactic history presuming to show that the problem with the modern Republican Party is that it doesn't get enough votes in Georgetown, Hyde Park and Berkeley. The GOP, says Brooks, "has lost the educated class by sins of commission -- by telling members of that class to go away." That notion might deserve more examination, but let's look at the two conservative thinkers Brooks name-checked in the opening of that column:

• Richard M. Weaver was a native of North Carolina who grew up in Kentucky, graduating from the University of Kentucky and getting h...