REALITY CHECKS. Why I Turned Right, the subject of Book Review No. 8, is a collection of autobiographical musings by a variety of public intellectuals, some of whom were default secular-progressives and some of whome dabbled with more esoteric politics, who have more recently identified themselves as "conservative," broadly construed. For the most part, these are individuals better known as writers for opinion magazines rather than as government officials or as academicians. That said, it might behoove curious individuals within government and the academy to read the book, if for no other reason than to discover some of the tics, biases, and institutionalized smugness that recurs as explanation of selecting the starboard tack in several of the sketches.