The Great Disrael and the GOM

I am curious about what the Doc thinks regarding David Gelernter's recent Weekly Standard essay, "The Inventor of Modern Conservatism: Disraeli and Us".

Myself, I have never liked Disraeli much, once I had actually read about him rather than just enjoyed him as a character in costume dramas. He struck me as an unprincipled opportunist, which is much what Gladstone thought of him. The assault upon Sir Robert Peel seemed to me crass, serving only to eliminate an opposition party from British politics for decades. Nor could I see any pattern in Disraeli's legislative program when he was Prime Minister, other than making the Conservative Party very popular. Here my feelings were exactly in line with Anthony Trollope's. In Phineas Finn, the story of a rising young Irish MP, the Disraeli-esque leader of the Tories suddenly decides to advocate the disestablishment of the Church of England as part of his solution to the Irish question. It must have seemed somewhat plausible to Trollope's readers; they knew that Disraeli might do anything for political advantage.

Maybe it was Trollope, or Roy Jenkins' great, big, fat biography, but I came to view Gladstone as a much more acceptable figure. And, in a lovely synchronicity, here is a review essay from Books and Culture that deals with David Bebbington's new book, The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer, and Politics. (Since Jenkins was not so muchunsympathetic as uncomprehending of Gladstone's spiritual and religious life, and more than a touch patronizing towards the GOM's classical scholarship, Bebbington's biography is very welcome indeed.)

Compare and contrast, class.