Travel week for me, first to Ashland University on Monday, where I’ve taken up my new appointment as the Thomas Smith Fellow at the Ashbrook Center (don’t miss the Ashbrook Center’s spiffy redesigned website), and where I’m teaching an upper division course again this fall, this time on “American Political Economy.” Like last fall’s course on Hayek and political economy, I’ll post some nuggets from class from time to time, including the sprawling reading list I’m dumping on my poor hapless students. (The Ashbrook Center continues to go from strength to strength, and is currently embarked on a capital campaign—hint, hint.)
Speaking of spiffy websites, my Hillsdale pal (and fellow prog-rocker) Brad Birzer coedits a fun and thoughtful website called The Imaginative Conservative, which is described as “an on-line journal for those who seek the True, the Good and the Beautiful.” It leans a bit in what is sometimes pejoratively (and wrongly) described as “paleoconservatism,” but heck, since the “paleo diet” is hot right now, paleoconservatism may start to look more favorable too. After all, I can recall a time when most liberals kinda/sorta approved of “neoconservatism.” That was before “neoconservatives” started winning political power. Then they became evil. Anyway, check out The Imaginative Conservative.
Meanwhile, I’m in Washington for the next 24 hours, as tomorrow morning (Thursday) I’ll be guest-hosting Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show again from 6 – 9 am eastern time. (You can listen online if there isn’t a station in your ‘hood.) I’m going to try to make it a Todd Akin-free zone, and get back to talking about Paul Ryan and other issues that will decide the election (that will be my opening segment in the 6 o’clock hour), but if it’s still on the minds of callers I’ll be happy to vent.
My guests will include, first, Leon Aron, author of the fine new book Roads to the Temple: Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991 (Yale University Press). With Russia so much in the news—and yes, I’m wondering whether I can get away with a reference to the girl rock group “Pussy Riot” on the Bill Bennett show—Leon’s great insights will be useful. (Leon provided me with great insights into Gorbachev and the Soviet Union in the 1980s for my second Age of Reagan book.)
My second guest will be Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and author of an important new book about an aspect of the Obama agenda that tends to be overlooked. Stanley’s title tells it well: Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. Liberals hate the suburbs, and not only want 
to tax suburbanites more, but always have schemes, popular with some Minnesota liberals like Myron Orfield, to extend the political reach of the central cities over the suburbs. Think of it as school busing on steroids. Stanley has their number.
My third guest will be Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation, and co-author (with John Fund) of a new book I’ve mentioned here before: Who’s Counting?: How Bureaucrats and Fraudsters Put Your Vote at Risk. (We discussed this book and this issue, especially the Minnesota connection, in a previous post.) Do ring up if you can, and let Dave the call-screener know you’re a 
Power Line reader, and I’ll try to put you at the head of the line.
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