Michael Novak today

Michael Novak My own hypothesis is that they were afraid of being thought too rigid, too orthodox, too conservative, too (oh horrors!) reactionary. They preferred to make no public statements, and to avoid seeming to insist on law and order, orthodoxy, toeing the line — they were too timid to insist upon fidelity, fidelity, fidelity. They feared being thought old-fashioned, even puritan.

I don't agree with everything in Novak's column but his analysis is always worth having. And his hypothesis is as near to correct as I have seen anywhere.