the nature of the litmus test, though herndoes try to refute it by citing RichardrnNixon and Jack Kemp as conservativesrnwho would have failed it. It is questionablernwhether Nixon as President orrnKemp at any time was a conservative,rneven by the definition applied elsewherernby Frum, which is that of a Taft Republicanrnwho believes in small governmentrnand fiscal restraint.rnFrum descends entirely into gibberishrnwhen he tries to yank neoconservativernchestnuts out of the fire. He tells us, forrnexample, that it was not the neocons butrnEd Feulner, someone “who never in hisrnlife had a good word to say about thernGreat Society,” who was “much more instrumentalrnthan Kristol in kiboshingrn[M.E. Bradford’s] appointment [as NEHrndirector],” Feulner having been forced torntake this action by Bradford’s tendencyrnto “liken Abraham Lincoln to Hitler.”rnReagan, Frum explains, had withdrawnrnhis support from Bradford becausernhe did not “wish to wreck his politicalrnhoneymoon in order to refight thernCivil War.” We may wonder (or shouldrnwe?) why Frum does not level the samerncharge against Bennett and Kemp, whornhave lectured white Southerners on thernneed to atone for their history of slavery.rnAnd what about Reagan’s own attemptrnto “refight the Civil War” by issuing anrnexecutive order to cease decorating Confederaternmonuments in and around thernDistrict? Describing Feulner and thernHeritage Foundation as being withoutrnneocon ties, moreover, is an exercise inrndeception. In 1981, when Feulner wentrnto Reagan in order to defame Bradford,rnwell over half of his annual operatingrnbudget came from neoconservativernsources.rnSuch desperate attempts to upholdrnneocon revisionist history show Frum atrnhis worst. But he does have a better side,rnwhich can be seen in several of his shorterrnpieces. His remarks about Harry Trumanrnas a vicious politician and his witheringrnassessment of the religious rightrnsuggest the presence of a critical intelligence.rnFrum’s essay “The Legacy ofrnRussell Kirk” is the finest piece I have everrnread on the subject, though, like everythingrnelse in his anthology, it shouldrnhave been written with more care. A betterrnedited and vastly expanded draft ofrnthis critical tribute should have beenrnplaced at the end of the volume, insteadrnof Frum’s boilerplate remarks on thernPassover Seder. But here the editorialrncall might not have been Frum’s: hisrnpatrons might have mistaken for highrntheology his quite conventional gloss onrnthe Passover Haggadah.rnPaul Gottfried is a professor ofrnhumanities at Elizabethtown Collegernin Pennsylvania.rnFree at Lastrnby Gregory McNameernThe Run of His Life: The PeoplernV. O.J. Simpsonrnby Jeffrey ToobinrnNew York: Random House;rn470 pp., $25.00rnThe criminal trial of the former footballrngreat O.J. Simpson on therncharge of murder, a trial that overshadowsrnthe Gulf War as the media event ofrnthe 1990’s, has been over for more than arnyear. The civil trial against him, chargingrnthat he violated the civil rights of NicolernBrown Simpson and Ron Goldman byrnmurdering them, has begun with considerablyrnless fanfare: an abatement in thernmedia bombardment for which wernshould all be grateful.rnThe criminal trial, Jeffrey Toobin observesrnin his ably written book, involvedrn”92 days of testimony, 58 witnesses, 488rnexhibits, and 34,500 pages of transcripts.”rnToobin was on hand for everyrnnumbing moment, and he reports hisrnfindings in his dense yet thoroughlyrnreadable account, which may be the onlyrnone of the many books to have comernfrom the trial that does not seek to makernits author a hero.rnToobin does not tantalize. He announcesrnearly on a conclusion that manyrnobservers reached before the criminalrnproceedings began: O.J. Simpson, footballrnstar and minor celebrity, is guilty ofrnhaving committed double homicide onrnthe night of June 12, 1994. The jury didrnnot agree with Toobin’s conclusion: it letrnSimpson walk, shrugging off a body ofrnevidence that, in the author’s view, establishesrnSimpson’s guilt beyond reasonablerndoubt.rnMost black Americans, according tornpolls conducted at the time, agreed withrnthe jury; most white Americans did not.rnThat ethnic division, Toobin argues, wasrna natural outcome of the conduct of therntrial during which Simpson’s defensernteam made race—not the guilt or innocencernof a single man—the issue of contest.rnPolitically hijacked from the outset,rnthe trial took on a Ras/jomon-like qualityrnin which differing accounts of what hadrnhappened on that June night matteredrnless than did differing perceptions of thernkind of man O.J. Simpson is.rnToobin has his own answer, citing “thernbanality, self-pity, and narcissism thatrnare the touchstones of [Simpson’s] character.”rnYet, a former trial attorney himself,rnhe expresses a sort of indignant admirationrnfor the defense strategy, arnmasterpiece of indirection that its author,rnattorney Robert Shapiro, later triedrnto disavow. The race card, Toobin writes,rnwas shameless; and shamelessly unbelievable,rninasmuch as Simpson had takenrngreat pains throughout his adult life torndistance himself from the black community.rnSmall wonder that at the time ofrnthe trial Jesse Jackson called him a “deethnicizedrnNegro.” As Toobin points out,rnwhen Simpson penned a supposed suicidernnote before embarking on his infamous,rnheavily televised freeway flight, hernnamed among his 15 best friends onlyrnone black man, the fellow football playerrnA.J. Cowlings; the rest were wealthy,rnmiddle-aged white men. But, as Simpsonrnhimself once said, “I’m not black.rnI’m O.J.”rnRegardless, the mainstream press,rnfearful of exacerbating ethnic tensions inrnthe wake of the Rodney King verdict,rnnever questioned the strategy of makingrnO.J. an African-American hero—a misdirectionrnthat then allowed the defensernto put forward grand, unsubstantiatedrnclaims that Simpson was on the dock as arnresult of a racist conspiracy engineeredrnb’ the Los Angeles Police Department.rnThe misdirection was successful, Toobinrnwrites, because it was played out before arnsympathetic jury composed of blackrnmen and women whom pretrial pollingrnsuggested were likel)’ to support Simpson’srnclaim of innocence. That jury, thernpolling also revealed, was disposed to dislikernthe lead prosecuting attorney, MarciarnClark; a severe woman who, Toobinrnwrites, tended to see cases as clear-cutrninstances of good against evil. Yet,rnToobin reports, “the Simpson casernblurred the lines between the good guysrnand the bad in a way that Clark had neverrnencountered.”rnHer conviction that she served thernforces of good caused Clark to makernhubristic mistakes, Toobin argues.rnJANUARY 1997/33rnrnrn