Thomas Fleming on Machiavelli:

By Machiavellian, I did not mean the usual negative interpretation imposed by cynical liars on the great man, but the hard-boiled and truthful realism of Machiavelli, who was the first political thinker really to understand power without being corrupted by it. I would argue that Jefferson’s forthright and honest look at politics, combined with his distrust of self-important elites, make him a worthy disciple of the great Italian republican.

A different evaluation from that by Straussians and Straussian-influenced Catholics?