When Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative” was published in 1960 he was the “undisputed champion of conservative ideas and policies in the Senate,” according to an opinion writer in The Washington Times.
Still it was Goldwater’s speechwriter, L. Brent Bozell Jr., who penned the 110-page booklet for him, articulating his ideas about limited government, civil rights, government regulation, taxes, spending, welfare, and more.
More than 50 years later, another “Conscience of a Conservative” is making headlines – this time the author is a Republican Senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, who in his 140-page book, released July 31, declares President Donald J. Trump the “emperor” who wore no clothes and offers scathing characterizations of his supporters.
Brent Bozell III, the son of Goldwater’s ghost-writer isn’t amused. In a statement from the Media Research Center, of which he is the president, Bozell denounced Flake and his new book.
“Since entering the Senate in 2013, Jeff Flake has, time and again, proven he is part of the indulgent hypocrisy in Washington,” Bozell said in the statement. “While he waxes poetically about conservative principles, .. Jeff Flake is neither a conservative nor does he have a conscience.”
Calling the 1960 work by ghost-written by his father, and well-known by conservatives, the “greatest selling polemic in history,” Bozell accussed Flake of “trading on its reputation to shamelessly promote himself and disguise his own conservative deficiencies.”
The new book is a “fraud,” according to Bozell, and not a sequel to the original, he said, maintaining that although the Goldwater Institute (where Flake was previously a president) may own rights to the book title, it and Sen. Flake should not be “trading on its reputation to shamelessly promote himself and disguise his own conservative deficiencies.”
Bozell called on other conservatives to join him in denouncing Flake, who is campaigning for the 2018 mid-term elections. The Los Angeles Times is calling him “one of the most endangered Republicans running for re-election in 2018.”
— Joni B. Hannigan is an award-winning writer, editor, teacher, PR specialist, and the author of thousands of news and feature articles. She is also an accomplished photojournalist. In 2015 Joni won the Frank Burkhalter Award in Religious Newswriting at the Wilmer C. Fields Awards Competition. She is a U.S. Navy veteran. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook
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