The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Oakeshott

I've got to thank Andrew for anecdotally raising the authority of my attack on Austin Bramwell's Weberian conservatism [DTO] by ten Oakeshott points:

at a National Review confab where Oakeshott was unfortunate enough to speak, his address received utter bewilderment from the muckety-mucks and Buckley proteges in the crowd. In the end, one of them mustered a question: "Excuse me, Mr Professor. But what does any of this have to do with the power of the president of the United States?" "Oh," Oakeshott reportedly replied. "The president of the United States has no power. He has authority."

This is misleading if cosmically accurate -- the office of the President of the United States is very obviously vested with certain powers which it takes a President to exercise. But the distinction Oakeshott and I and Andrew are drawing reminds me again of one complexity I couldn't quite treat fully was the difference between, say, Philip Rieff's theory of authority and Oakeshott's -- specifically as far as religion, faith, prophecy, revelation, guilt, and repentence are concerned. One more plate to keep spinning...