Here's the second installment of my interview with columnist Katherine Kersten. I asked her about where conservatism is headed, President Obama and the role religion plays in her world view. Second of two articles.

Part One: Katherine Kersten on liberals, same-sex marriage and life at the Star Tribune

Perhaps no columnist in town raises a liberal's blood pressure more than Katherine Kersten. I talked with Kersten about liberal rage and other topics. First of two articles.

David Brauer: The Star Tribune op-ed page's war on Kersten

One central theme shared among the Republican gubernatorial candidates is a devotion to traditional conservative principles: limited government, an aversion to higher taxes, zero-based budgeting, improved education and strengthened family values.

The New York Times recently took on the administration, producing an embarrassing tiff that highlights a fading promise of candidate Obama: granting the public access to what's going on inside government — transparency, for short.

A self-described "libertarian conservative," he believed passionately in the big-tent approach to politics and wielded his rhetorical sword against Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals.

There is no serious student of politics in the past 30 years who has not been influenced by his thinking. As one of the progenitors of neoconservatism, he defined its adherents as liberals who had been "mugged by reality."

Racing down a highway in northern Iraq at the head of a convoy of 100 tankers barreling toward the Jordanian border is a far cry from a race for the Owatonna City Council, but Dave Thul seems to have made the transition with relative ease — and inordinate aplomb.

Should the United States pull most of its troops out of Afghanistan? Peter Hegseth, a rising star in conservative ranks in Minnesota and the leader of a group of Iraq and Afghan combat veterans, says that's a terrible idea.

I'm not attempting to bork Ted Kennedy. As a man, he had many fine attributes. Yes, give praise where it is due, honor his memory, but leaven the paeans with a modicum of reality.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that claims of "security" have joined "racism," "patriotism" and a host of other bogus bleats in Samuel Johnson's burgeoning refuge of scoundrels.