The third generation: young conservative leaders look to the future.

• Author: Gladwell, Malcolm

The Third Generation: Young Conservative Leaders Look to the Future.

Ben Hart, ed. Regnery Books, $17.95. The biggest moment in Ralph Reed's life came when he saw the film "Patton.' He was a freshman at the University of Georgia, sitting in a packed movie house, when up on the screen Patton told Ike that he wanted to roll the Russians then and there. That, Reed remembers, "elicited a spontaneous and uproarious standing ovation from the students in the audience. For several minutes the theater was the scene of near pandemonium. I became convinced at that moment that a political earthquake was taking place within my generation, a shift in values and attitudes that would have major consequences for the future direction of the nation.' Ralph Reed, "most likely to succeed' in the senior class of 1979 at Stephens County High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, class president, varsity debater, and junior assistant scoutmaster, had come of age.

There are dozens of stories like this in Hart's book. He has carefully transcribed and edited the right-wing pep rallies he hosts twice a month at the Heritage Foundation, adding a handy list of recommended reading (Lord Action, David Hume, Phyllis Schlafly), plus a complete biography of his movement's very best and very brightest. The result is a portrait of young conservatives and the frightening incidents that pushed them right.

Consider what happened to Dinesh D'Souza. "Originally from Bombay, India, he did not consider himself political when he first arrived on the Dartmouth campus. But then he received an invitation to a college-sponsored dance. When he arrived, he found that the men were dancing with the men and the women with the women.' Today Dinesh works for the White House.

These are passionate young men and women, always on the moral offensive, ready to take on liberalism wherever they find it. But there's nothing stuffy or pretentious about them. According to his Third Generation bio, Adam Myerson, the editor of the Heritage Foundation's flagship, Policy Review, is "willing to publish a risky or a zany article, as long as the thesis is supported by hard data and sound reasoning.' The fact is, as Gregg ("the most promising young journalist of his generation') Fossedal puts it in the book's opening chapter: "Culturally speaking, surf's up in America.' This is a golden era for young conservatives who want to cut loose intellectually. "Outrageousness, for one thing, is back . . .. Movies designed to...