GANG OF FIVE

Thoughtful and balanced portraits of five lively and influential conservatives, emphasizing their intellectual roots and the parts they have played in the increasing sway of conservative policies and politics in the US since before the Reagan presidency.

The gang of five are journalist and pundit Bill Kristol (editor and publisher of The Weekly Standard), the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed (now a political consultant), former Indiana congressman David McIntosh (now running for governor of Indiana), lawyer Clint Bolick (whose clients are the urban poor), and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist (who keeps trying to herd all the conservative factions into the same corral). Easton (Reagan's Ruling Class, not reviewed) chose these five because they represent a range of thought across the conservative spectrum. All baby boomers, they also have in common brains, education (two Ph.D.'s among them), and a dedication to overthrowing what they see as entrenched liberals in government and the media. Idealistic and dedicated, fueled by revolutionary energy that matched their youthful counterparts on the left during the 1970s, they "brought to the Right an unprecedented level of political and media sophistication." Easton, eschewing amateur psychological analysis, examines each of their backgrounds with the emphasis on their college experiences (ranging from the cool and elitist Kristol at Harvard to the then-raucous, hard-drinking and arrogant Reed at the University of Georgia). She tracks the five to Washington in the wake of the Reagan victories and recounts the battles over Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork (a loser) and Clarence Thomas (a winner, in spite of Anita Hill), the blowback from the Oklahoma City bombing, and the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. That ultimately failed because, Easton suggests, Clinton's opponents misjudged Americans' support for personal virtue. Whatever missteps these five made—and they were many—they and others like them are poised to continue the "war without blood" to establish their conservative principles as the measure of power in American politics.

For political junkies, politicians, and policy makers on the right or left who will discover that there is more substance to the conservative movement than Charlton Heston and abortion-clinic bombers.