We bandy about the words “liberal” and “conservative” as we discuss just about anything in the realm of public policy or private preference. In this conversation from 2008 we examine the history of conservative thought from Edmund Burke to the present. Our guide ran the conservative publishing house (simply “Regnery”) for many years.

…whether in radio or television are provided by “voice-over actors,” many of whom pursue their special trade (it’s really a very special art!) in Chicago. Here are four of them telling the secrets of the trade, invoking their many voices and having a good gossip session one night back in 2002. One of them is the famous Joel Corey who was the snap in Kellog’s  “snap, crackle and pop.”

Jack Germond was one of the great print and TV journalists  focused upon national politics. In 2004 he took a cynical but amused look at the unreliability of his journalistic brethren – particularly as they offered their quick and dramatic appraisals on weekend TV.

According to Richard Posner, a public intellectual uses general ideas drawn from history, philosophy and the sciences to analyze public problems and issues of general concern. George Orwell is an example of a great public intellectual, says Judge Posner – who goes on to argue that they don’t make them as they used to. In this vigorous conversation from 2002, Posner and Ron Grossman run through a large list of “intellectuals” who presume to explain – through their writing and broadcasting – what’s right, wrong and worth conserving or rejecting in contemporary society.