Commentary Back in 1966, liberalism never seemed better. The Civil Rights Movement had just concluded with the triumphant passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Great Society programs such as the War on Poverty promised to curb other forms of inequity, too, with social servants showing the wisdom of the state in fixing what the market couldn’t. Women’s Liberation was in the air, and females were pouring into universities and aiming for jobs other than nurse and teacher. Meanwhile, the Sexual Revolution was (putatively) opening whole new pathways of human fulfillment. The momentum was enormous. To join the elite ranks in culture and education and not become a liberal took a measure of independence, or prickliness, that most people don’t possess. On the other side, intellectuals and academics, journalists and artists and entertainers, liberals of any educated kind … they could play offense nonstop, never doubting their rightness, …