Not necessarily, says Steven Smith of Yale in his recent book (Reading Leo Strauss) and in this conversation. The Iraq War, the Weekly Standard, “noble lies” in politics, renascent Judaism as a source of political analysis, “exoteric” and “esoteric” political commentary: these are some of the areas into which one must venture, says Smith, when trying to account for Strauss’s thought and his influence upon the rise of neo-conservatism.