Right Goes 'Crunchy'; Stereotype-Busting Conservatives Spur New Counterculture

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Byline: Robert Stacy McCain, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The conservative movement in America has fallen prey to a materialism that reduces everything to market values, Rod Dreher argues in "Crunchy Cons," a new book whose lengthy subtitle summarizes his case: "How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or at Least the Republican Party)."

A Louisiana native and now a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Dreher has worked for the New York Post, The Washington Times and National Review. The following are excerpts of an e-mail interview with Mr. Dreher, who lives in Dallas with his wife and two children:

Question: In your book, you say Hillary Rodham Clinton was right when she said, "It takes a village to raise a child." You also praise Jimmy Carter's 1979 "malaise" speech. Isn't that pretty much career suicide for a conservative writer?

Answer: Well, let's hope not. I was being intentionally provocative with those comparisons, because I think we on the Right (like the Left) fall into intellectual ruts that prevent us from seeing when the other side has a good idea, or at least something worth debating. If by "it takes a village" Mrs. Clinton meant "it takes more …