Reviewing Crunchy Cons
[NRO Staff  03/21 08:58 AM]

From The Advocate (no, not that one):

Drawing heavily from Dreher's domestic scene and letters from other crunchy
cons, the book is, by its nature, heavily anecdotal. Dreher does not rely on
statistics or demographical studies to support his argument, but then again,
when Thoreau observed that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, he
didn't offer a pie chart for his proposition, either.

The ebulliently elongated subtitle of Dreher's book, and a "Crunchy Con
Manifesto" on the back cover, attempt to distill Dreher's premise into some
basic talking points.

But the best thing that one can say about Crunchy Cons is that it refuses to
be simplified into talk show cliches or bumper sticker bromides.

In other words, the book makes its finest arguments in the text, not the dust
jacket. When's the last time you could say that about a political opus?