Thomas Jefferson got a good workout at the Thomas Jefferson for Today Conference in April. Annette Gordon-Reed, who sees grave contradictions between Jefferson’s status as a slave owner and his high-flown talk of the rights of man, got in some good jabs. As did Jon Kukla, who connected with several uppercuts to Jefferson’s attitudes toward women.

“Few politicians reconcile their R and R (reality and rhetoric),” said history Professor Gene Smith, who coordinated the conference. And each generation passes judgment on historical figures according to their own take on reality. “Jefferson is the founding father people love to critique.”

While George Washington seems beyond our reach and John Adams is too irascible to reproach, Mr. Jefferson, it seems, is an icon who can take it squarely on the chin.

What other president could speak with relevance to as many topics as Jefferson does today? As Peter Onuf’s keynote address on Jefferson and war, Frank Shuffleton’s paper on Jeffersonian architecture, and Doug Bradburn’s discussion of Jefferson’s problems with immigration revealed — in subjects as varied as education, diplomacy, border control and aesthetics — Jefferson rules. Sure, he gets a few scholarly knocks. But like his most famous declaration, he still comes out fighting.