Artistic lie-cense

Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page contains a piece by art critic Terry Teachout about a new Tim Robbins play called “Embedded.” The play blames the second Gulf War on the political philosopher Leo Strauss, quoting, in Teachout’s words, “chapter and verse to prove his contention that the war was started for nefarious reasons by a cabal of Strauss’ neoconservative disciples in the Bush administration.” Robbins has the lead character, Pearly White (Richard Pearle), state that “Moral virtue has no application to the really intelligent man, the philosopher. In the words of Leo Strauss:

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