The Other Side of the Little Rock Nine

Submitted by Rick Perlstein on September 30, 2007 - 8:17pm.

From time to time you still see the argument that there once was a noble and idealistic conservative movement, arrayed behind the figure of Barry Goldwater, from which heights today's gutter conservatives have fallen. And it's always been one of the purposes of this blog to debunk the notion: our argument is that modern conservatism is a failure in its original conception, not merely in its perversion in the age of Bush. I was reminded of that again this weekend, listening to Tavis Smiley interview the Little Rock 9 on his radio show on the fortieth anniversary of the day President Eisenhower had to mobilize the 101st Airborne to escort them to school, after Arkansas governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to keep them out.