Of course they are

"A course on "The Conservative Intellectual Tradition in America" at the Citadel, a public military college in South Carolina, features Newt Gingrich, Donald Rumsfeld, Phyllis Schlafly, and the heads of the National Rifle Association and the Ayn Rand Institute. Are they the best that contemporary conservatism has to offer?"

Russell Jacoby in  "Dreaming of a World With No Intellectuals" in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

those are the folks who spelled the beans about Appstate's attempt to dump Prof. Jammie Price.