UPDATE, SATURDAY MORNING:

Friday night's speaker at the YAF West Coast Leadership Conference, Dinesh D'Souza, gave an excellent presentation on his new book, What's So Great About Christianity?

For a solid 45 minutes, D'Souza gave -- without a text, without even notes -- a stirring point-by-point defense of the Christian faith and its influence in human history, a speech delivered with both passion and reason.

D'Souza's previous book, The Enemy at Home, was criticized by some conservatives for suggesting a sort of "cultural blowback" explanation of Islamic terrorism. His argument in that book could be summarized as offering "Britney Spears" as the answer to the "Why do they hate us?" question that has been asked often since September 11.

As some critics said, D'Souza's argument in that book was that America needs to combat violent Islamic theocracy by instituting an American theocracy. (Perhaps the most eloquent and irrefutable answer to "Why do they hate us?" question was the title of Brigitte Gabriel's book, Because They Hate.)

D'Souza's is clearly back on more comfortable terrain with his new book, which counters the arguments of what he calls "The New Atheism" -- typified by such radical secularists as Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris. Perhaps the most eloquent and witty of the secularists is Christopher Hitchens, whom D'Souza recently debated at King's College. Here's video from that debate:



Again, lightning-fast Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has photos and more.

Continuing forward with the conference: Saturday morning, a panel on "Why I became a conservative activist?" was capped by Seattle talk-radio host Kirby Wilbur, who humorously recounted some of his own activist escapades and teased some of the students who had a rowdy party Friday night in the hotel room next door: "Next time, invite me."

Still to come: "24" executive producer Joel Surnow and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

-- RSM

Blogging from Santa Barbara, Calif., where I'm attending the West Coast Leadership Conference sponsored by the Young America's Foundation at the Reagan Ranch Center. Friday, I toured President Reagan's "Rancho del Cielo" with a group of bloggers that included Ace of Spades -- who was just named Best Conservative Blogger in the 2007 Weblog Awards -- as well as Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit, Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom, and Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report (who was recently honored with his own fatwah from a pro-jihad blogger). Gateway Pundit is a lightning-fast blogger, who's already got up a post about our morning tour of the ranch.


During lunch at the ranch, we heard a presentation by John Barletta, longtime Secret Service agent for President Reagan and author of "Riding With Reagan." Among the memories Mr. Barletta shared was describing how he witnessed the genuine affection between the president and first lady Nancy Reagan.


"It was not an act," Mr. Barletta said at the barbecue luncheon, telling how he and the president once returned from a horseback ride and were greeted by Mrs. Reagan. President Reagan "jumped off his horse" and kissed his wife passionately.


"They would sit there sucking face like two teenagers at a drive-in movie," said Mr. Barletta, evoking laughter from an audience that included scores of conservative college and university students, as well as top donors to YAF.


Thursday evening, three dozen YAF student activists were treated to an hourlong talk by Internet newshound Andrew Breitbart. The talk was officially off-the-record, but it can be reported that Mr. Breitbart -- who was profiled earlier this year in The Washington Times -- entertained the students with a recounting of his own undergraduate days at Tulane University. He also talked about the "underground society of Hollywood conservatives" who are working behind the scenes to balance the liberal bias rampant in the entertainment community.


One of the not-so-underground conservatives in Hollywood, "24" executive producer Joel Surnow, will speak Saturday at the YAF conference. Friday night's dinner speaker is author Dinesh D'Souza, while former Attorney General John Ashcroft will speak at Saturday's keynote banquet.


I'd love to blog more right now, but outside my window the palm trees are swaying in the breeze, the sun is shining on the Santa Ynez Mountains in the distance, and the heated swimming pool is beckoning. Will update later.


-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times