At Iowahawk, it’s the return of cherished conservative columnist/yachtsman T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII: I Daresay It Is Time We Deal With the Mutineers Aboard the S.S. Conservatism.

Much has been written about the fate of the conservative movement in the months since last I corresponded with you. I won’t belabor the barrels of ink expended in the printing of its obituary, nor will I bore you with further reading of its entrails. Suffice it to say the grand old ship is in the doldrums, adrift in the electoral currents, with nary a harbor on the horizon. But it is time we leave such map room mopery aside and navigate a bold new course for the conservative armada. One needn’t have a 400-year old heirloom scrimshaw sextant for this task; but, fortunately, I do.

It’s quite a handsome instrument, I might add, skillfully hewn from North Atlantic whalebone by some long forgotten crewman on De Gouden Hoer, the sleek Dutch galleon that once transported great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great-grandfather Marinus Van Voorhees to the New World, safe beyond the reach of the angry Amsterdam mobs who mistakenly blamed him for some unpleasant business there involving tulip futures. According to family legend grandpapa Marinus won it in a high stakes high seas game of Kaiserspiel, trumping that unlucky crewman’s queen-high flush with his trusty pearl handled rapier. Although it doomed the crewman to a tragic fate as shark chum in the Gulf Stream, his beautifully crafted sextant has since proven a treasured family keepsake — passed down from generation to generation of Van Voorheeses as we migrated westward with the great American expansion; from Newport to Greenwich to Manhattan, and finally back east again to the summer compound in Montauk.

Read the whole fervid screed…