Surly, you're a heck of a butterfly microblog.intellectualoid.com
@mineinmono I didn't remember it was Mencken, but I think you're right about the source — and about the valence of the image.
@ReaderJohn Does it make sense to think of JDV as he presented himself then as meaningfully the same person as JDV as he presents himself now? But I suppose I could ask the same about RD: Some piece I read in the last couple of days described him as a "localist" and I laughed out loud.
@JohnBrady Both have moved in a postliberal or illiberal direction, which I hasten to add doesn't necessarily mean anti-democratic (we have lots of counter-majoritarian features in our fundamentally democratic polity). I'd say we dare not trust the older versions of each; we're at version 2.0 at least.
I still find both of them interesting, though I take Rod in much smaller doses now.