Right Wing Nut House

One of the interesting things about maintaining a blog is that ultimately, it devolves into a conversation with yourself about what you think regarding a variety of subjects. Some liken blogs to “thinking out loud” and that may be true to an extent. But there is a difference between writing and thinking - a very large difference.

I believe, as Sir Francis Bacon did, that “Reading maketh a full man, conference, a ready man, and writing, an exact man.” Writing forces you to condense your thinking, to slough off extraneous concepts not germane to the subject until you are left with the very essence of your thoughts, allowing an examination and ultimately, a judgement regarding their efficacy relating to your own worldview and ideological principles.

In this way, blogs allow both the writer and the reader to trace the growth of ideas and concepts - buttressing some, discarding others, and amending still more while trying to stay true to a coherent set of principles - a set of core beliefs that would require considerably more than atmospheric changes or transient events to alter.

No human mind is capable of being entirely consistent. We are not, after all, machines. Emotions are constantly in play as we wrestle with our consciences while seeking to remain faithful to our own intellectual self-image. Blogs are extremely useful in this regard because they allow the writer to hold up a mirror and examine their reflection over a long period of time. How has our thinking changed? Where have we taken a different road? Are our principles still intact, our beliefs still valid?

I hope you will forgive this rather lengthy digression into esoterica but to me, this is the interesting part of the journey to self-discovery; trying to ascertain how we think as well as discovering what we think is why writing makes us “exact” in our efforts to know ourselves better.

I bring all this up because I have written extensively over the last three years about the nature of modern conservatism and how it is slowly becoming irrelevant to large segments of the American electorate - largely as a result of the unrealistic and indeed, fanciful adherence by conservative politicians, pundits, and even some intellectuals to ideas and principles that have become as outmoded in their own way as Marxism.

Generalizing the problem, many conservatives are mired in a Reaganesque fantasyland where the mantra “small government, low taxes, less regulation, and strong national defense” is repeated ad infinitum as if saying it loud enough and often enough makes it true - despite the fact that except for a strong national defense, the rest of these “principles” are as outdated as central planning and a command economy.

The essence of the problem is that both liberals and conservatives today see government as almost a living thing to be hated or loved depending on one’s point of view. Government is not alive, although it is close to existing as a force of nature so large and nearly uncontrollable it has become. Instead, government should be seen as a utility to be organized as best as can be humanely done so that it becomes a servant of the people and not their master.

Believing that we can roll back the size of government and make it “small” is a pipe dream and, along with the idea that we can demand government do a million things and not raise the taxes to pay for them as well as ask government to protect us from impersonal corporations who seek to destroy competition, exploit workers, endanger our environment, foist their dangerous products on us, and generally wreak havoc on our lives and families without someone looking over their shoulder is absurd.

The idea that the market will fix dangerous working conditions for miners or force companies to end exploitive work rules and policies in service industries is just not tenable in a 21st century industrialized democracy. Neither will the market clean up toxic waste, sensibly protect the environment, establish minimum standards for drinking water and breathable air, or ensure that some of the remaining green places left in the United States can be enjoyed by our grandchildren.

These are not luxuries that we can afford to privatize or do without. They are as vital to our survival as the new Air Force fighter being developed. The question that should occupy conservatives is not whether we should have strict standards for drinking water but rather how do we reconcile conservative principles with the needs of the people in a modern society?

For conservatism to survive and even thrive, a new paradigm must be realized that recognizes we live in a different world than the one inhabited by our ancestors and that many of the old verities we cherished are just no longer relevant to what America has become. For better or worse, the United States is changing - something it has always done and always will do. Without altering most of the core principles of conservatism, it should be possible to change with it, supplying common sense alternatives to liberal panaceas for everything from health care to concerns over climate change.

Obviously, there is no lack of ideas in this regard if you read the policy prescriptions appearing on the pages of Heritage, AEI, Cato, or other places where academics and policy wonks gather to supply these alternatives. But there seems to be a disconnect between the thinkers and the doers - politicians, pundits, and activists. Having read most of the Republican candidates stands on issues, outside of Fred Thompson’s detailed critique of entitlements and his ideas on a muscular kind of federalism, there isn’t much in the way of deep thoughts being generated in this campaign so far. In fact, there appears to be little in the way of original thinking at all; just a rehash or recycling of projects and programs that wouldn’t stand a chance of passage in Congress.

Now I am not saying that conservatives should compromise their principles to gain success in the legislature nor am I saying those principles should be abandoned in order to gain electoral victory. But there is a difference between having a vital conservative movement that shapes and informs government and one that has no relevancy whatsoever to modern America.

This is where my thinking has taken me these last three years - a recognition that conservatism needs to have its best and brightest strike out and find new ways of defining what it means to be a conservative in 21st century America. Obviously, my poor efforts here on this blog amount to little except some relatively unformed, nebulous thoughts on what I see as a need for this change. I make no claim to being an intellectual or even that thoughtful. But where else can you pour your brains out and examine the contents but a blog? That is what I’m doing here and I hope you take it for what it’s worth; the musings of a concerned conservative who is unhappy with the state of the right as it stands now.

Michael Tomasky at the Guardian got me thinking in this direction this morning:

That is, Americans have now experienced a conservative government failing them. But what lesson will they take? That conservatism itself is exhausted and without answers to the problems that confront American and the world today? Or will they conclude that the problem hasn’t been conservatism per se, just Bush, and that a conservatism that is competent and comparatively honest will suit them just fine?

Conservatives and the Republican presidential candidates hope and argue that it’s the latter. They largely endorse and in some cases vow to expand on the Bush administration’s policies - Mitt Romney’s infamous promise to “double” the size of the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, notably. Like Bush, they vow that tax cuts, deregulation and smaller government will solve every domestic problem. Where they try to distinguish themselves from Bush is on competence. Romney talks up his corporate success, Rudy Giuliani his prowess as mayor of New York.

Is it the messenger or the message that’s at fault?

Just asking…

For Christian activists to actually call their yearly confab the “Value Voters Summit” takes a considerable amount of chutzpah.

Whose values? And doesn’t everyone vote for the candidate that best reflects their own values?

The truth is, we’re not talking about “values” as much as we’re talking about “issues:” abortion, gay marriage, and Lord knows what else that bubbles up as a result of the Christian right’s cockeyed view of American politics. And, of course, even beyond which “issues” define a “values voter” is the importance an individual politician attaches to those issues.

But values? Is there anyone who seriously argues that Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney’s “values” are superior to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton’s? Don’t tell me that Hillary is any more or less honest than any of them. Ditto Romney. These people are politicians which by definition, places honesty far back in line as far as “Truths I live by.”

But to say that generally speaking, all American politicians share the same values should be a given. It should also be self evident that American voters share these values as well. These shared values make us a sovereign nation, a community of like minded citizens who are in general agreement regarding what is “right” and what is “wrong.”

Abortion and gay marriage? These issues are defined for each of us not a matter of values but of faith. Or the lack thereof. Rationalists argue a different point when life begins than many Christians. And while I’ve read secular arguments for not allowing gay marriage (unconvincing to me, anyway), allowing gay couples the same rights and privileges as married heterosexual couple via a civil union is nearly impossible to speak against when using “values” as a yardstick. One might argue as a matter of faith that homosexuals should be denied equal protections under the law (with some very specific exceptions). But don’t try and foist that idea as a “value” shared by the American people on the rest of us.

Hence, my beef with this “Values Voter Summit.” The issues that the Christian right want prominently addressed by Republican politicians are hardly on the radar of importance to the rest of us. Talk of a third party being formed simply because the GOP presidential candidate doesn’t have the same kind of commitment to the issues these Christian activists say are important only proves how totally skewed the agenda of the Republican party has become. It is a form of blackmail for candidates like Giuliani and Romney who governed in places where the activists were weak and therefore, they felt no pressure when they advocated their personal beliefs regarding abortion or gay marriage and did not try toeing some invisible party line.

I have my own problems with both Giuliani and Romney having nothing to do with their stance on abortion or gay marriage so I’m not making a partisan argument here. The idea that the “values voters” who met this weekend in Washington are saying their “values” are superior to those of others or even that they are more sharply defined does a disservice to the rest of us who share most of the same values as the Christian activists but try not to judge people who might disagree that one “issue” or another represents a moral judgement of what is right or wrong.

In the end, that is what is being foisted on the Republican party; not values but a rigid ideology disguised as religious faith that seeks to punish apostasy and push to the fore issues that are just not important to the rest of America.

The question isn’t whether this dynamic is going to change or not. The question is will it change fast enough to save the party. A couple of more disasters like 2006 won’t make a difference if the party refuses to learn the lessons that caused the defeats in the first place. And if it doesn’t learn, it is not beyond imagining that the Grand Old Party - once a powerhouse national organization that dominated so much of the country - would become a small, regional party confined to the south and a few border states; a rump of its former self.

The power of the religious right in party affairs has never been so great and it may take something of a civil war between the evangelicals and secular conservatives to hash this out. So be it.

We might as well get started right after the disaster that’s shaping up for the GOP in 2008.

Recent events involving Republican candidates for president as well as the cumulative effect of hypocrisy, corruption, intolerance, and the stupidity over immigration have led me to the only logical conclusion possible.

At the moment, I am a man without a party.

I sure as hell am not a Republican - not after the last fortnight’s disgraceful exhibition by GOP presidential hopefuls who first, pissed off Hispanics by ditching the Univision debate, then made it a twofer by having the top tier candidates blowing off Tavis Smiley and the so-called “All American Presidential Forum” The fact that this “all american” debate forgot to put an American flag someplace where it might be visible doesn’t obviate the insult done to the organizers of the debates much less the viewers.

And then to top off GOP idiocy for September, you have war hero John McCain saying first that he couldn’t support a Muslim for President and then clarifying that remark a little later by basically saying, “Well, I can support a Muslim as long as we can be sure of their loyalty to the United States.”

How big of you, John. All you have to do is substitute “Catholic” for “Muslim” and you have exactly the right attitude - for the election of 1928. That’s when people wondered whether Catholic Al Smith would be more loyal to the Vatican or to the US Constitution.

And don’t even get me started on Larry Craig.

What in God’s name has happened to the Republican party? Is it out of fear of being asked tough questions that the candidates ducked these debates? Or was it the more practical rationale that there are no votes to be had by attending so why bother?

Your choice then is cowardice or indifference. Which was it?

To come out and say with a straight face that there were “scheduling conflicts” that precluded their attendance only reinforces the notion that the GOP is the party of snivelling liars. Nobody believes that explanation. And, of course, being so stupid allows your opponents to fill in the blanks and tell the voters the real reason you didn’t attend: You’re all a bunch of racist pigs who don’t give a fig about the concerns of city folk or black people or Hispanics.

Is it true? I don’t know anymore which is why I no longer wish to be identified with the Republican party. It isn’t a question of converting minorities and convincing them to vote for GOP candidates, although showing a little more tolerance, a little more understanding might soften people’s opposition. But there is a strong, principled conservative case that can be made that liberal policies towards minorities have done catastrophic damage to minority families, inner city neighborhoods, the urban tax base, and city schools. And while you’re talking to these voters, you could also point out that voting for people who created and continue these policies while taking the black and Hispanic vote completely for granted is akin to committing self-genocide.

This isn’t the party I enthusiastically supported in the 1980’s. That party stood up to the racial bullies like Jesse Jackson and Charlie Rangel, making the case against the welfare state with vigor and confidence. Back then, we honestly believed - still believe - that conservative policies empower people to take control of their own lives while giving your fellow American a helping hand when necessary. Community based programs and citizen action at the neighborhood level is still the best way to deal with the problems of the inner city where so many minorities live in hopelessness. Big city liberals have recognized this and tried to adapt some conservative ideas although they are still thinking in “top down” terms when it comes to the direction of these programs. Tax breaks for businesses that set up shop in poor neighborhoods - although today is carried sometimes to excess - was laughed out of town in the 1980’s. It is now part of every city’s efforts to bring jobs to minorities.

We conservatives should not be ashamed that we oppose policies that continue the destruction of minority lives and support policies that offer hope for a better future, free of dependence on government. We aren’t the only one’s preaching this sermon. Many black churches and community organizations are also for many of these empowering policies. The key is partnership. And a legitimate question can be raised asking how can you be partners with people you ignore when running for the highest office in the land?

As far as avoiding the debate on Univision, deliberately missing that event makes even less sense than missing the Smiley confab. Are we not proud to stand up before our worst critics and say we are for enforcing the law, for fairness for all legal immigrants? And if you can’t get up in front of an Hispanic audience and talk candidly about immigration and border security, you have no business asking for their votes anyway. We are always going to have race baiting groups like LULAC taking GOP concerns about border security and equal enforcement of the law and twisting those positions into some kind of racist, anti-Hispanic program where babies are going to be ripped from their mothers arms when we send the woman back to Mexico. But not standing up in front of the Hispanic community and listening to their concerns while carefully delineating between immigration scofflaws and legal immigrants is an open invitation to your political foes to feed that stereotype of Republicans as heartless monsters.

Plain and simple, it is stupid, self defeating politics.

Now what about the GOP “Muslim Problem?” This goes hat in hand with our “Christian” problem that has me constantly close to tears of frustration when trying to talk to many on the right.

For you see, according to my many critics on the hard right, evidently I am not a conservative. I am an atheist, pro-choice, gay loving, liberal weenie - despite the fact I was on the frontlines of conservative activism when most of my critics were still in books or not even born yet. There wouldn’t be a conservative revolution without people like me and it’s time you haughty, holier than thou, insufferably arrogant party destroying numskulls acknowledged it. You have turned a party with which a majority of Americans identified because of its probity, its strong stands on national defense, foreign policy, and fiscal restraint into the party of anti-abortion zealots, gay bashing louts, and obsessed morality nannies.

Obviously not all Christians are as I describe so don’t be emailing me telling me how wrong I am. But there is a sizable, vocal minority - probably close to 15% of the party - that has skewed GOP issues away from the everyday concerns of the American people and toward these religious crusades against abortion, gay marriage, and making America “moral” whatever that means. The first thing the American people think of today when they hear the word “Republican” is either “anti-abortion” or “anti-gay marriage.” To have those issues identifying the party is again, stupid and self-defeating.

I actually support some of the Christian right’s agenda with regards to the decay of cultural values (not personal morality). But kicking me out of the Conservative Book Club because I think that people who love each other - regardless of what sex they are - should be able to enjoy all the legal rights of heterosexual couples is insane. Nor should my belief that the state has a compelling interest in the life of a baby only when it is viable outside of the womb (which is not the de facto pro-choice position) be a reason to take away my key to the Haliburton executive washroom.

These are not issues to judge who or who is not a “conservative.” Nor should my opposition to the exclusionary tactics of GOP presidential candidates brand me as some kind of politically correct diversity freak. I wholeheartedly reject the notion that conservatives need to pander to any racial or ethnic group. But that doesn’t mean you have to go out of your way to insult them by showing indifference to issues that are important to them.

Perhaps some day the GOP will wake up and once again stand on principle and not cower in the shadows. If they don’t, I probably won’t have to worry about it.

They will eventually alienate so many people that they won’t be much of a political party at all.

I have made no secret on this blog of my distaste for the Republican strategy of pushing opposition to abortion and gay marriage as litmus tests for GOP candidates and as “wedge” issues to use in campaigns.

While I acknowledge there are many millions of sincere, devout Christians (and other social conservatives) who see these issues as vital to the moral fiber of the nation and thus worthy of standing them up front and center as the party’s main identity, from a personal standpoint, I strenuously disagree.

Abortion, I can understand. The religious underpinnings that can rationalize life at conception are well known to me, having grown up Catholic. But the Republic or the “sanctity of marriage” being in danger because two people in love want to get married? That’s a stretch. There may be other reasons to keep gay people from marrying but the more I think about it, the more I believe that it’s really no body’s business who loves who and what sex they are. There may be sticky legal issues involved but I’m no lawyer and can’t speak to them. All I can look to is common sense. And common sense tells me that gay people should be able to do anything in this free country that anyone else can do.

Beyond common sense, there is politics. And while I am not calling for dropping these planks from any GOP platform, these issues are no longer “wedge” issues. They are “loser” issues. They are “recipe for electoral disaster” issues. They are driving people away from the Republican party.

Another time I might make the argument that they are not even conservative issues but such a post is not in my pen tonight. Instead, I want to talk about the regularity with which conservative Republicans seem to get themselves into trouble over sex. The latest is Idaho Senator Larry Craig who was arrested in a Minneapolis restroom for “lewd conduct.”

“At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could … see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider.”

Karsnia then held his police identification down by the floor so that Craig could see it.

“With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit. Craig responded, ‘No!’ I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. … Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn’t want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom.”

The conduct doesn’t seem lewd to me and the whole story reeks of something very fishy. But the fact is, the Senator pled guilty and probably thought that it would stay out of the papers if he didn’t make a fuss.

The point really isn’t whether he’s guilty or innocent. The point is that this sort of thing becomes a huge issue because of the way the party talks about gays and the way many GOP stalwarts like Reverend Robertson and James Dobson talk about sex. The perception that Republicans are a bunch of bigoted blue noses stuck in the 19th century with Victorian sensibilities about the bedroom turns off a lot of voters - especially the young.

A brief look at this eye popping poll that shows the vital 18-29 year old group turning up their noses at Republicans is very significant. I was in that age group when I became a Republican and many of my fellow Reaganites were also young, eager conservatives who drank in the enormous intellectual ferment that bubbled up from dozens of places in Reagan’s Washington. We were on the cutting edge and we knew it.

Nowadays, I don’t blame young people for turning off the GOP. The corruption, the hypocrisy, the sanctimony, and the tired old men pushing tired old ideas to an ever shrinking number of wealthier, whiter, men has the GOP in deep, deep, trouble. If I were that age again, I probably wouldn’t support Republicans either.

Perhaps the predicted disaster in 2008 will wake a few people up. Not likely based on what happened in 2006. As the left did for 30 years, the push will be for more ideological “purity,” more fealty to what passes for conservative issues today.

Just at the moment that our country needs the right’s commitment to fight a war against an implacable, unyielding foe, our own stupidity is going to allow the milquetoast left to ascend to power. For that, our children and grand children may curse us for our folly.

/off

UPDATE

Ed Morrissey also sees disaster for the GOP in 2008 - at least in the Senate.

The Republicans already have a 21-12 disadvantage in next year’s Senate contests. His was one of the seats the GOP hoped to hold, and his party had been pushing to keep him from retiring. I suspect they’re looking for Plan B at the moment.

And Allah gets off the line of the day.

(From the Roll Call article) “At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, ‘What do you think about that?’ the report states.”

(Allah): I think he can probably start throwing away those cards now.

C: I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Pardon the lengthy introduction, but The Dead Parrot Sketch is one of Monty Python’s most important contributions to the humor of western civilization. Or not. I suppose it depends on whether you like Monty Python.

Be that as it may, the sketch is also instructive regarding the imminent demise of what we used to call “The Grand Old Party” which became the nickname of Republicans back in the day when “The Grand Army of the Republic” - Union veterans of the Civil War - pretty much ran the party. Those 400,000 or so veterans elected every Republican president from Grant to McKinley. Their endorsement carried huge weight with a grateful electorate who recognized the veteran’s sacrifices and honored them even beyond the effective life of the GAR.

Now the party is run by cynical hacks and jackanapes who, despite all evidence to the contrary, insist that the parrot isn’t dead, it’s just resting. The plumage may still be pretty. But maggots have already begun to eat away at the insides.

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker–”At this point the break became final.” That’s not what’s happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn’t need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don’t even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

Peggy Noonan is not some turncoat, traitorous, weak kneed Republican pantywaist. She helped put Ronald Reagan’s ideas and thoughts to some of the most beautiful rhetorical music of 20th century politics. But she, along with many of us, are tired and dispirited. We have seen the Republican party run into the ground and then stepped on by an Administration and a President who have gone beyond taking most of us for granted and instead have declared war upon those who have sustained his presidency in the face of the most vicious and determined opposition to his policies. We have been slapped in the face, kicked in the teeth, stabbed in the back. And the smug, self-righteous mountebanks who are taking the party with them to oblivion could care less.

In fact, given all that has transpired since the 2004 election (which coincided with the last time the Bushies even paid lip service to the base) one could say that this President has seemed most determined to destroy the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Reagan leaving behind only a charred husk for the rest of us to live with. They have decided that Götterdämmerung is in order; if they can’t prevail, then they will destroy what is left of the grand coalition that changed the face of America and the world in the 1980’s and in a fit of either pique or ignorance, leave it for the next crew to cobble together something else.

I will say that it didn’t take much to destroy what was left of that coalition. Since the end of the cold war - the single uniting expedient of the Republican party for more than 30 years - the GOP has been adrift. Uniting against Clinton was fairly easy although that unity was a mile wide and an inch deep. It was based on the absolute worst of political bargains; the cold, calculus of how to get power and keep it. So for ten years Republicans played the special interest game, feeding the lobbyists a steady diet of earmarks and favors, reaping huge amounts of campaign contributions in return, while selling out their basic principles of smaller, less intrusive government and fiscal discipline.

And now, there’s precious little left. No ideology. Little loyalty. Less desire to help this gang of cynical galoots maintain what power and position they have remaining. Witness the news from the Republican National Committee:

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors’ rebellion over President Bush’s immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee’s chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.

“The phone-bank employees were terminated,” RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. “This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable.”

Fired employees acknowledged that the committee’s phone equipment was outdated, but said a sharp drop-off in donations “probably” hastened the end of the RNC’s in-house phone-bank operation.

“Last year, my solicitations totaled $164,000, and this year the way they were running for the first four months, they would total $100,000 by the end of 2007,” said one fired phone bank solicitor who asked not to be identified.

Not dead. Just resting.

The real danger, of course, is that come November next year GOP candidates simply won’t be able to compete in the 70 or so seats in the House that the Democrats are licking their chops to see change hands. With little available help from the national party and a base that will not only sit on their wallets but probably sit on their hands come election day, the chances are growing that a truly remarkable collapse will occur, an historic implosion that, like a tidal wave, will change the political contours of the country once it recedes. The stars are not quite aligned yet for such a disaster. But the tumblers are beginning to click into place and it remains to be seen whether anyone or any group in the GOP can alter history’s course.

Meanwhile, the Bushies continue to employ their scorched earth policy toward critics:

I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they’re defensive, and they’re defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill–one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions–this is, always and on every issue, the administration’s default position–but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate.

They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true!

Indeed. The President’s famous stubbornness - a quality that held him in good stead early in his Administration - has now morphed into a pathological, ego-centric belief that since he is always right, his critics are not only wrong but evil to boot. I guess six years of enduring the unhinged, BDS paranoia and conspiracy theories of the lickspittle left can do that to a man.

The fact that this self righteousness has permeated his entire Administration as well as most supporters of his Let’s-Not-Call-It-Amnesty-Even-Though-It-Is bill only makes many of his erstwhile supporters wonder is there anything left to expend the time and energy defending. Some would say the Administration’s policies in Iraq are worth going to bat for. But given recent news that the President is about to undercut even his Iraq War supporters by withdrawing a substantial number of troops for no more reason than the Democrats have given, it would appear the betrayal of even these, his most loyal and true acolytes, will eventually be complete.

Meanwhile, world events rush forward. Iran continues to thumb its nose at everyone. Pakistan becomes more unstable by the day - with its 60 nuclear weapons poised to possibly fall into the hands of Taliban lovers. Afghanistan still bleeds despite small successes. Lebanon is in danger from a desperate Syria who seeks to undermine its government to prevent an International Tribunal from declaring President Assad a common, murderous gangster. Chavez is taking Venezuela to hell. And the terrorists continue to plan murder on a cosmic scale.

A lame duck President without much of a base, a rabid dog opposition, and a party coming apart at the seams means a time of maximum danger for the United States. I wish it weren’t so. But the palpable feeling of impending disaster that I feel to the marrow of my bones requires me to cry out in anger and despair at those who have taken us down this road and who will now reap the whirlwind for what they have sown these past few years.

UPDATE

Allah channels the parrot:

The RNC spokesman denied that there has been a falloff at all. Yup, there’s nothing wrong in the GOP family these days. Nothing at all. Nothing to see here, move along.

UPDATE II: FROM THE “HOLY CHRIST!” FILES

Michelle links to a Mary Katherine Ham post on a verbatim transcript with an RNC solicitor:

Caller: “Well, that’s not Republicans. Just the President loves that immigration bill.”

Caller: “That’s ridiculous.”

Indeed. You lost me at “hello”…

When I survey the disaster that is the current Republican party - a leaderless, rudderless, dispirited mob without a clue of how to begin fixing what’s broke - the obvious question that leaps to mind is can anything be salvaged from the current situation? Or is the GOP condemned to walk the earth like Zombies for the foreseeable future with no direction, no heart, and little in the way of motivation to animate its followers?

You think I’m being too hard on Republicans, huh? Quick, name the leader of the Republican party. Time’s up. If you said Bush, I’ll give you points for loyalty but then take away your Haliburton Club card. The President of the United States is busy doing what every second term president has done since the beginning of the republic; fashioning a legacy for the history books. If you think he cares much for the Republican party - especially this president - I would just as soon you remain on the sidelines while those of us who have to deal with the reality of the situation take over.

Who else as leader of the GOP? Mr. Boehner? Mr. McConnell? Fine gentlemen, adequate legislators both. But as leaders of a national party, they both leave much to be desired as far as personality, temperament, and the ability to move large numbers of people toward a common goal. Herding lawmakers is a lot different than inspiring voters. And frankly, neither one of those gentleman has got “it” - that ineffable quality that draws the legions to your standard and inspires personal loyalty above and beyond attachment to party.

Leadership certainly can’t be found in the gaggle of presidential candidates fielded so far by the Republicans. While some of those qualities I mentioned are present in a few of the candidates, they have no standing to grab the reins of leadership and begin the process of bringing the party back from the dead. Perhaps when a clear winner emerges early next winter (and it will be early), the Chosen One can work on re-energizing and re-tooling the party. This will be in addition to trying to organize a national campaign in order to effectively challenge the eventual Democratic nominee. Somehow, I think that party building will take a back seat to the more important task of getting elected in the first place.

And that brings us to Fred Thompson and his slow, steady (some would say stodgy) progress toward entering the race for the Republican nomination. It used to be true back in the day that a candidate waited until after Labor Day the year before the election to formally announce his candidacy. This was because no one in their right mind would eschew FEC “matching funds” available to all candidates in favor of abandoning those limits in order to raise obscene amounts of cash (Hillary and Obama are expected to raise close to $120 million each). It was considered bad politics and bad strategy back then. But times change as does the way candidates run for president. An early announcement is almost a necessity now so that a candidate can compete in the upcoming heavily front loaded primary season.

But Fred Thompson has done things a little differently and as a result, has made an effective splash in the race. Running a “Front Porch” campaign from Tennessee, Thompson has cautiously ventured out to speak at a couple of friendly forums while using the internet to great effect. His presence on the web is not measured in hits at a website but rather the buzz created by his web activities. A You Tube video of a response to Michael Moore swept the net like wildfire. He has also blogged a bit as well as written some widely disseminated Op-Eds, garnering a much larger readership on the net for those pieces than in the publication they originally appeared.

Thompson has accomplished much in a short period of time. He has moved up the ladder into the first tier of serious candidates given a realistic shot at the nomination. And he has done it without much of an organization, virtually no paid staff, and no paid media. This is remarkable feat when one thinks of the way modern campaigns are conducted and speaks well of the Senator’s abilities.

In short, Thompson gets it. And when a Republican leader emerges from the current crop of presidential candidates, it should be someone who can use the net as a major means to rebuild the party. In one fell swoop, someone like Thompson could close the gap that most everyone agrees has opened up between the liberal netroots and the conservatives on the internet. By bringing the right “home” to the party (without venturing too far from the center) as well as being a focal point for organizational activities - fund raising, volunteers, and other party building efforts - a candidate could make huge strides in bringing the GOP back from the dead.

But much depends on Thompson himself and what kind of a candidate he might be. We’ve only gotten glimpses of Thompson the Campaigner; a rather disappointing appearance in California (Bob Novak writes that he threw away prepared remarks and winged it), and a more recent and more successful appearance in Stamford, Connecticut.

That Stamford appearance is much more instructive as to what we can expect from Thompson:

Thompson implied at Stamford that Republicans, along with Democrats, are responsible for making Americans cynical. While so far not spelling this out publicly, he deplores ethical abuses, profligate spending and incompetent management of the Iraq war. He becomes incandescent when considering abysmal CIA and Justice Department performance under the Bush administration. He is enraged by Justice’s actions in decisions leading to Scooter Libby’s prison sentence.

In his Senate voting record and his public utterances, Thompson is more conservative than Giuliani, McCain or Romney. He takes a hard line on the war against terror (referring in Connecticut to the danger of “suicidal maniacs” crossing open borders) and worries about immigration policy creating a permanent American underclass. His one deviation from the conservative line has been support for the McCain-Feingold campaign reform, much of which he now considers overtaken by current fundraising practices and perhaps irrelevant. Overall, his tone, in a soft Tennessee drawl, is less harsh than that of other Republican candidates — a real-life version of the avuncular fictional D.A. he plays on TV.

Beyond ideology, Thompson envisions a 21st-century campaign, utilizing the Internet more and spending less money than his opponents. When speaking to a friendly audience or ruminating off the record, the 6-foot-7 actor-politician does not look or sound like the GOP’s announced candidates for president. His challenge will be to convey that impression when he appears with opponents on the same stage in the immediate future.

If true, this makes Thompson an even more impressive candidate in my mind. The untapped potential - and not just for fundraising - in organizing a net based campaign means that Thompson has a real chance to blow the rest of the GOP field out of the water. The danger is that expectations will creep so high that when he finally emerges from his front porch, the Savior of the Party will instead be seen as something a little more ordinary.

The same thing happened to Wesley Clark in 2004:

Fred Thompson is to the Republicans in ‘08 as Wes Clark was to the Democrats in ‘04. In other words, the highpoint of his campaign will be the day he gets in the race, because once he’s a serious candidate–and not just the fevered daydream of a dissatisfied base–voters will realize he’s not all that. Remember, you heard it here first. And if Thompson doesn’t flame out and actually goes on to win the GOP nomination and (gulp) the White House, well, forget I ever wrote this.

Update: Ana Marie Cox writes in to point out that you only heard it here first if you don’t read Swampland. And, in comments, MrCookie1 lays claim to the same thought. That’s three people who think Thompson=Clark. It’s a bona fide trend!

Wishful thinking by the left or prescient analysis? Clark’s problem was that the left was looking for a war hero to blunt the GOP’s huge advantage on national security issues. The fact that Clark proved to be an empty suit on domestic policies as well as a stiff-as-a-board campaigner didn’t help. And the charges that he was a “Democrat of convenience” - fed by his stated admiration for Colin Powell and Condi Rice - hurt him badly right out of the box.

No, Fred Thompson is no Wesley Clark. But there is still a danger that expectations won’t be met immediately as the Senator goes through the inevitable shake down problems all campaigns have at the beginning. Overcoming those problems will be a test of his leadership and communication skills. And his debate appearances will also give voters the opportunity to see how well he thinks on his feet. All in all, a Thompson candidacy will certainly alter the dynamics of the race as the other frontrunners attempt to sharpen their differences with the Senator.

The GOP race for president is about to get very interesting.

The Wrong Stuff: The Extraordinary Saga of Randy “Duke” Cunningham, The Most Corrupt Congressman Ever Caught: A Review

Disclaimer: One of the authors of this book, Jerry Kammer, is an old friend of the family. It was he who sent me a free copy of the book to review.

This articile originally appears in The American Thinker

It is “the biggest case of Congressional corruption ever documented.” Shocking in its scope and in the brazenness of its conspirators, the Duke Cunningham bribery caper is a tale not only of individual malfeasance that would make a grifter cry but also of a culture in Washington, D.C. that threatens the integrity of government itself.

The saga of Duke Cunningham from a popular, athletically inclined small town boy to war hero, to Congressman, to convicted felon is told in a new book by the Pulitzer Prize winning reporters who broke the story. Marcus Stern, Jerry Kammer, and George E. Condon, Jr. of Copely News Service and Deal Calbreath of the San Diego Union Tribune shared the award for National Reporting in 2006 with James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times who won for exposing the top secret NSA program to spy on terrorists.

What Stern et. al. uncovered in their investigation of Cunningham’s criminality went far beyond the rather seedy yet spectacular corruption of one Congressman. The authors have written a brief against the budget device that led Cunningham (and no doubt others) down a primrose path toward temptation and ultimately, a moral surrender to turpitude; a device that threatens the foundations of trust in our elected officials; a belief that they are acting in the interests of their constituents and not to line their pockets with gifts and cash from the legions of lobbyists whose only job is to wring as much of our tax dollars as is humanly possible from the government and deposit it in the bank accounts of their clients (keeping a healthy portion of pork for themselves).

It’s earmarks, of course. And if you can come away after reading this book and not be shaking in anger at the unadulterated and transparent corruption that earmarks have fostered, then you don’t pay taxes or simply don’t care.

In truth, there is nothing illegal about earmarks and, as the authors point out in a brilliant chapter on the practice, they can be used for good at times. As an example of earmarks being used for a beneficial purpose, a lone Texas Congressman steered billions of dollars to the Afghan resistance fighting Soviet occupation in the 1980’s. Said Representative Charlie Wilson (whose story was told in the hugely entertaining Charlie Wilson’s War) “There are three branches of the government and you have to explain that to the executive branch every once and a while and earmarks are the best way to do that.” Wilson believed that the Afghan resistance would never have triumphed without earmarks because the CIA would not have spent the money effectively.

But the authors make the case it is not necessarily what earmarks are for that is the problem. After all, one man’s earmark is another man’s necessary expenditure. What may look like a pork road project to one person living far away from where construction would take place could in fact be a “quality of life” issue to someone directly affected by the increased traffic flow and safer driving that a particular earmarked project would bring.

Rather it is the way that earmarks are included in the budget process that cries out for radical reform. Earmarks are usually dropped into spending bills anonymously and are rarely debated on the floor of the House. Or they are added during mark-up sessions or even during House-Senate conferences. Sometimes, they are included in the Committee’s report on the final spending bill and not even passed on to the President when he signs it.

Earmarks were a problem going back in the 1980’s. For example, the authors point to the 1987 Transportation bill vetoed by an astonished Ronald Reagan who counted no less than 121 earmarks in the bill. Both the House and Senate - Democrats and Republicans - shrugged off the Gipper’s disapproval and passed the bill over the President’s veto overwhelmingly. In 1991, the number of earmarks in the pork laden Transportation bill had grown to 538; 1850 by 1998; and by 2005 the total number of earmarks reached a mind numbing 6,373 costing an additional $24.2 billion. (Source: Taxpayers for Common Sense).

Newt Gingrich and the Republicans saw the earmark as a ticket to a permanent majority. The Republicans would place newer or more vulnerable members on one of the Appropriations Committees which would give them access to the lobbyists who, in exchange for an earmark, would fill their campaign coffers with cash as well as shower the member with gifts, junkets, and other goodies.

It is a sordid, depressing, but perfectly legal practice. But to a man like Duke Cunningham, it was a goldmine, a path to the riches and lifestyle he had craved since a boy in a small Missouri town where he grew up. Graduating from the University of Missouri, Cunningham got married to his college sweetheart and took a job in Hinsdale, Illinois as an assistant coach of the swim team. At that time, the Hinsdale swim team was coached by the legendary Doc Watson who won 12 straight state swimming titles and sent several of his athletes to the Olympics. Cunningham was later to brag that he was responsible for much of the team’s success - a statement belied by both former athletes he coached as well as Doc Watson himself.

But that was Duke. And after losing a close friend in Viet Nam, Cunningham decided to enlist in the Navy and fly jets. Proving himself a dedicated aviator, Cunningham’s diligence was rewarded on one spectacular day in May of 1972. On May 10th, in a dogfight immortalized by the History Channel’s “Aces of Vietnam” documentary, Cunningham engaged and shot down 3 enemy MIG’s. Coupled with the two he shot down earlier in the year, that made Lt. Randy Cunningham an air ace - the only naval ace of the war.

But there were troubling indications that Duke Cunningham had a moral weakness when it came to money even back then. Prior to receiving the Navy Cross for the action that made him an ace, Cunningham and his backseat man Willie Driscoll informed their commanding officer that they were going to refuse the most prestigious decoration the Navy awards and “hold out for the Medal of Honor.”

Apparently, Duke had been promised by a Washington bureaucrat that he would receive the Medal of Honor and felt he deserved it - and the $100 a month that came with it. And even though his commanding officer disabused Duke and Driscoll of the notion that they were going to be awarded the MOH, to many who became aware of the story, this early indication of Cunningham’s moral blindness was telling indeed.

Being feted after the war as a hero and role model, Cunningham also saw how the rich lived and craved that lifestyle until it became an obsession. Barely elected to Congress in 1990, Cunningham set out to get the most out of his position of trust.

The story of his bribery is told in a spare, no nonsense manner by the authors. It traces Cunningham’s relationships with his co-conspirators Mitchell Wade, Brent Wilkes, and Thomas Kontogiannis and how they milked the government for federal contracts using earmarks - often in the “black budget” of classified projects - while Cunningham was paid for his services in cash.

The most unbelievable piece of evidence against Cunningham was the so called “bribery menu” where the Congressman actually wrote down on a piece of Congressional stationary how much he expected in kickbacks for each kind of earmark he successfully pushed through Congress. The menu showed that Cunningham wanted a $140,000 yacht for the first $16 million in government contracts. Thereafter, he expected $50,000 in bribes for each additional million in contracts.

Missing this piece of evidence the first time around, prosecutors got a tip about the document and deciphered it. The Congressman, who had been proclaiming his innocence, buckled at that point and agreed to plead guilty. He is currently serving an 8 year sentence - the longest prison sentence ever given to a Congressman for bribery.

But the question that the authors never quite answer and seem to dangle in front of the readers, tempting them perhaps to make their own judgement, goes to the heart of the debate over earmarks. Did the earmarks themselves corrupt Cunningham or did they simply act as a catalyst for his already warped sense of entitlement?

If it is the latter, then this is a story of one more venal politician caught with his hands in the cookie jar. But what if it’s the former? What if earmarks themselves (and the way they are currently being used and abused) is at bottom, an overwhelming temptation to members and literally irresistible to all but the most incorruptible.

There are now 35,000 lobbyists in Washington, D.C. whose ability to deliver tens of thousands of dollars to Congressional campaigns means that members must pay obeisance to them or lose out on the gravy train. It is a broken system that no one can figure out how to fix. Some see government financed elections as the answer - unsatisfying because most experts agree that it would make races even less competitive than they are now. Others see unlimited contributions with full and immediate disclosure on the internet. This would be another invitation to permanent incumbency.

The authors sensibly do not offer any grandiose solutions to this dilemma. They are, after all, reporters not policy wonks. All they’ve done is uncovered the facts and told a story - a maddening, frustrating, sad, and yet riveting story of one man’s fall from the heights of power and privilege to the absolute lowest depths of prison and disgrace. It is a compelling human drama told in an entertaining manner. And in a way, like all good journalism, it is a call to action - to address the problem of earmarks before the corruption they engender destroys what credibility our lawmakers and government have left.

Addendum: I interviewed Jerry Kammer, one of the authors of the book, on my radio show. The podcast is available here.

This is self-explanatory. And overdue.

An Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors and Organizers Regarding Ann Coulter

Conservatism treats humans as they are, as moral creatures possessing rational minds and capable of discerning right from wrong. There comes a time when we must speak out in the defense of the conservative movement, and make a stand for political civility. This is one of those times.

Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter’s fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2006, Coulter referred to Iranians as “ragheads.” She is one of the most prominent women in the conservative movement; for her to employ such reckless language reinforces the stereotype that conservatives are racists.

At CPAC 2007 Coulter decided to turn up the volume by referring to John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator and current Presidential candidate, as a “faggot.” Such offensive language–and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it–is intolerable to us. It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation’s premier conservative gathering.

The legendary conservative thinker Richard Weaver wrote a book entitled Ideas Have Consequences. Rush Limbaugh has said again and again that “words mean things.” Both phrases apply to Coulter’s awful remarks.

Coulter’s vicious word choice tells the world she care little about the feelings of a large group that often feels marginalized and despised. Her word choice forces conservatives to waste time defending themselves against charges of homophobia rather than advancing conservative ideas.

Within a day of Coulter’s remark John Edwards sent out a fundraising email that used Coulter’s words to raise money for his faltering campaign. She is helping those she claims to oppose. How does that advance any of the causes we hold dear?

Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her “raghead” remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?

One of the points of CPAC is the opportunity it gives college students to meet other young conservatives and learn from our leaders. Unlike on their campuses—where they often feel alone—at CPAC they know they are part of a vibrant political movement. What example is set when one highlight of the conference is finding out what shocking phrase will emerge from Ann Coulter’s mouth? How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter’s invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.

CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

One of the great things about being a conservative is that contrariness is not only expected but, in some ways, encouraged. I suppose it comes from a lifetime of questioning a liberal culture that has been the dominant fact of living in this country for almost 50 years. However, once you start questioning the world around you, it’s hard to stop with simply critiquing your opponent’s positions and personalities. Challenging your own assumptions by investigating and weighing critical arguments from the other side is a necessity if you wish to remain true to yourself and what you believe.

This is not “wishy washiness” nor is it faithlessness toward conservatives or conservative ideology. Coming to the realization that the prosecution of the Iraq War has been horribly botched or that George Bush has shown weakness and incompetent leadership on issues from immigration to homeland security does not make me any less of a conservative than a Republican partisan who supports the President down the line and brooks no criticism of his performance in office. And I will challenge anyone who says otherwise.

The kind of conservatism practiced by many bloggers and their readers today is unrecognizable to me and I suppose many of my generation who came of political age during the late 1970’s and early 80’s. It is impossible to recapture the excitement, the intellectual ferment, the sheer joy of going to work in Reagan’s Washington during that time. After being in the political wilderness for so long, it was pretty heady stuff to suddenly realize that your ideas actually mattered, that your beliefs were being validated almost on a daily basis.

Back then, conservatives didn’t pay much attention to their differences. And believe me, there were plenty of them. The religious conservatives had only recently organized and flexed some muscle at the ballot box although I don’t think too many other conservative factions gave them much thought. Ronald Reagan certainly didn’t - at least not in any other context than giving lip service to their agenda.

Some may forget that Reagan was hardly a social conservative in the George W. Bush mold and while his rhetoric gave them comfort, his actual support for Constitutional amendments banning abortion, allowing school prayer, as well as early efforts to ignite the culture wars was tepid to non existent. Like FDR who managed the Henry Wallace wing of the Democratic party by adopting some of their class warfare rhetoric and appointing a few of them to positions in government, Reagan used the electoral raw material of the religious right but kept them somewhat at arms length.

I can recall my bemusement when discussing the religious right with my conservative friends. We didn’t dismiss them out of hand but saw the Jerry Falwell’s of the world as loose cannons, liable to say something that reflected badly on the President at any time. All of us were more enamored of conservatives like Irving Kristol whose intellectual journey from left to right mirrored that of so many of my generation. And we admired many of the new conservatives who had come to Washington; back bench Republicans like Newt Gingrich, Vin Weber, and Bob Walker - all smart, savvy politicians who didn’t shy away from combat with either the liberals in Congress or their own leadership.

All that has changed now. The social conservatives have become the most reliable Republican voting bloc in the conservative coalition. They dominate many state and local parties. They have done a fantastic job of organizing to the point that their issues now are at the forefront of the national Republican agenda. They engineered the Congressional majorities in the 1990’s and elected George Bush twice. And they have made themselves into the shock troops for Republican candidates in primaries and elections.

In the meantime, conservatives like me feel left in the dust, We occupy an intellectual backwater and feel out of the Republican mainstream. Like children at a big family gathering, we are sitting at the “little people’s table,” casting jealous glances over where the adults are sitting and cursing the fact that we aren’t old enough to take part in the conversation. The differences that didn’t seem to matter a generation ago now take on an entirely different coloring as politicians wishing to run for national office now shade their past positions on social issues to reflect the electoral realities of being a Republican and running in a party dominated by litmus tests and virtual loyalty oaths.

Just what kind of conservative am I? Am I a “traditional” conservative? A “libertarian” conservative? A “moderate” conservative? A “neo-conservative?” In my intellectual wanderings over the past quarter century I have probably at one time or another been all of those things and more. I gave up trying to peg myself years ago, realizing the futility in trying to define something that has no definition. I am what I am and believe what I believe and those who wish to label me as “this kind of conservative” or “that kind of conservative” will have to deal with it.

But it evidently matters to conservatives who dominate the internet as well as those attending the CPAC conference in Washington this weekend. Straying from orthodoxy as laid down by God knows who - sort of like Justice Marshall’s observation on obscenity being something not definable but recognized when seen - will almost certainly draw withering criticism your way. One can attribute it to the current state of our polarized politics where ideological apostasy in either party generates a fear bordering on panic that the other side will benefit by your abandonment of this or that sacred issue. This is the genesis of lock step liberalism and conformist conservatism. In politics as in war, everyone has got to carry a gun and march into battle toward the enemy. Anything less is treason.

The fact is, everyone knows that the old conservative coalition is a ghost of its former self. When 20% of self identified conservatives actually voted for Democrats in the 2006 election, you know that the right has splintered and that putting the pieces back together may be impossible.

The fault line has always been between the social conservatives and those who consider themselves “libertarian” or these days, “traditional” conservatives. Writing 4 years ago in The American Conservative, James Antle wrote:

The combination of libertarian and traditionalist tendencies in modern American conservatism was due in part to the need to gather together that ragtag band of intellectuals lingering outside the New Deal consensus who were opposed to the rising tide of left-liberalism. An alliance made out of political necessity, it drew some measure of intellectual consistency from the efforts of the late National Review senior editor Frank Meyer. He argued for the compatibility of innate individual freedom with transcendent morality, emphasizing that liberty has no meaning apart from virtue, but virtue cannot be coerced. Meyer saw libertarianism and traditionalism as two different emphases within conservatism, neither completely true without being moderated by the other. In fact, he held either extreme to be “self-defeating: truth withers when freedom dies, however righteous the authority that kills it; and free individualism uninformed by moral value rots at its core and soon brings about conditions that pave the way for surrender to tyranny.”

“Fusionism” was the name for Meyer’s synthesis, and while it was never without critics, it worked well enough for most conservatives and for the development of an American Right that counted anti-statism and traditional morality as its main pillars, alongside support for a strong national-defense posture. When Ronald Reagan became the Republican presidential nominee in 1980, this even became the basis of the GOP platform: smaller government, family values, and peace through strength.

Antle notes that the single unifying factor that created this fusion between social and more libertarian conservatives was the cold war. The fact that the Democrats had abandoned any pretense of confronting the Soviets or maintaining a strong national defense meant that many former Democrats - myself included - felt perfectly comfortable in joining a coalition that stressed standing up to the Communists and rebuilding our national defense and whose rhetoric that promised American renewal and ascendancy was a refreshing change from the cynical, defeatist words coming from the left.

But from what I’ve seen coming out of the CPAC conference - beyond the eager college kids and bloggers as well as activists who make up the guts of the Republican party - is evidence that my kind of conservatism really isn’t welcome anymore.

Perusing the agenda one is struck by how social issues and social activism seem to dominate. Even a seminar entitled “Strategies for a Bold Conservative Future” - which I would ordinarily be interested in attending - has as its participants Phyllis Schlafly, Kenneth Blackwell and Richard Viguerie. To posit the notion that these three able and intelligent people, all closely identified with social conservatism, would have much to say about building a conservative future that I would be very interested in is silly. (John Fund, a more traditional conservative, also participated).

And that is but one example. I realize the reason for this; the stars of the conservative movement, those who are best known, are social conservatives and that in order to goose attendance, it is best to have well known people running the seminars. But it points up the fact that the gulf between people like myself who don’t believe social issues should be such a dominant factor in the conservative movement and those who believe they should has grown to where it may be impossible to re-unite the factions even long enough to win elections.

Libertarians have already largely abandoned the Republican party and rarely agree with conservatives about anything - even the war. Traditional “small government” conservatives are disgusted and stayed home in droves during the 2006 election. (In 2004, conservatives made up 34% of those voting and fell to only 20% in 2006.) Neo-conservatives have largely been discredited and were never really a large part of the coalition anyway.

Whither me?

A third party is out of the question. Such would be a wasted vote in my opinion. I suppose if the Democrats keep tacking to the right, they may eventually capture many of the libertarian conservatives - especially if they can demonstrate fiscal responsibility. But for quasi-traditional, semi-neocon, somewhat social conservatives like me, I may be stuck at the table eating with the little kids for quite a while.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin is at CPAC and will be updating all day I’m sure.

Ed Morrissey on McCain’s absence:

McCain has gone out of his way to stress his conservative credentials, especially on hot-button topics such as abortion and the war. If that’s true, then what does he have to fear from a conference of conservatives predisposed to his positions? In fact, if he claims to represent conservatives, why should he fear speaking in front of a group of them?

We debated this quite a bit on Blogger’s Corner yesterday (which is somewhat misnamed, since we occupy a row and not a corner, but that’s another story).Someone made the point that the eventual nominee needs the people in this conference to act as foot soldiers in the general election. What does it say to those foot soldiers if that nominee is too afraid to face them because he might get booed — a slim possibility in any case? How does that nominee inspire loyalty in those he explicitly spurned out of the gate?

I think most analysts now think McCain’s campaign is stumbling at this point and whether it can right itself to challenge the Rudy juggernaut is now a legitimate question.

McCain is the closest thing to an “establishment” candidate the GOP has. He has lined up impressive endorsements in the early primary states but has yet to excite many grass roots activists. But he is still a war hero and many establishment types are grateful to him for sticking with Bush in 2004 and not pulling a Hagel. How that translates, as Ed wonders, into support in a caucus state like Iowa or a state like New Hampshire where volunteers are crucial is unknown.

UPDATE

Thanks to UberMitch in the comments who corrects my obscenity attribution above. It was Potter Stewart not Thurgood Marshall who said about obscenity, “I’ll know it when I see it.”

Interesting aside: In Woodward’s book The Brethren, the justices evidently looked forward to cases where they got to decide if a specific movie was obscene. Some, like Justice Douglas didn’t think anything was obscene so he never showed up for the screenings. But the other justices didn’t mind viewing the porn one bit.

The actual battle lines have been drawn for years. And there have been flare-ups along the periphery several times, most recently last year’s dust up over the life and death of Terri Schiavo. Perhaps only the uniting factor of the War in Iraq has kept the two sides from each other’s throats.

But make no mistake. With Tuesday’s election debacle and the ever growing realization that we are probably leaving Iraq sooner rather than later, the long delayed war between social conservatives and Republican libertarians is about ready to explode into a series of recriminations, name calling, and eventually, a parting of the ways.

The ideological incompatibility of the two groups makes one wonder how they ever ended up on the same side in the first place. It was to be sure, a marriage of convenience and, on the part of the libertarians, the fact that there was no place to hang their hat in the Democratic party.

Social conservatives have a long history of activism in the Republican party going back to the abolitionists right on through the fight to ban abortion. Libertarians are relative newcomers, having abandoned the Democratic party in disgust thanks to their fiscal policies and social engineering schemes. But the built in friction between libertarians and social conservatives never erupted into open warfare in the GOP because both factions were not considered important cogs in the Republican machine. That is, until 2000.

While social conservatives (and their close allies in the evangelical movement) had been gaining strength throughout the 1990’s by taking over several state parties, they also began to realize that they held the whip hand in Republican presidential primaries. How the social conservative/Christian right came to prominence in the GOP during the 90’s is a subject for another day, perhaps some rainy afternoon when I’m depressed and am drinking enough Glenlivit so that I can figure out how the party of Lincoln, TR, and Ronald Reagan - confirmed deists all - could have morphed into an organization where religion was allowed to play such a prominent role.

To be sure, this is the rub between libertarians and social conservatives. The prominence with which George Bush has featured Christian conservatives in his nominations to fill important posts (too many to list but Paul Bocelli to head USAID is one I wrote about here) as well as virtually turning over parts of the State Department to ideologically driven religious conservatives who have changed American policy as it relates to family planning, AIDS education, and even some aspects of women’s rights has grated with libertarians. And the prominence of social conservative issues (some have called them “wedge” issues) has also worried the libertarians who seek a broader agenda in order to attract more independents and moderates.

I suppose I should note that while an atheist, I share many of the concerns expressed by social conservatives relating to the toxicity of our culture and the decline of western values. The fact that libertarians have chosen (for the most part) to sit on their hands as our culture goes to hell in a handbasket not to mention their silence in the face of the left’s attack on western values makes me a reluctant ally of many social and religious conservatives. I am uncomfortable with a host of positions taken by the social right on abortion, gay rights, prayer in schools (although I agree with them regarding the pernicious attempt by the left to kick religion into the gutter), flag burning, and other less visible issues. But I believe for the most part, they are on the side of the angels. The left is not.

Fair or not, the perception has been fostered by libertarians that these social conservatives, now prominent and in the ascendancy in the Republican party, have in fact become big government advocates themselves. They wish to use the government, so the argument goes, to affect social change every bit as unacceptable as the left’s desire to reshape society into some kind of multicultural paradise, eschewing the “melting pot” model of American assimilation for a nightmarish riot of cultural conceits.

Conversely, social conservatives believe libertarians to be hedonistic libertines, not far removed from their enemies on the left who practice what Richard Baehr at The American Thinker has called “aggressive secularism.” And no issue revealed this deep divide more than the Terri Schiavo matter.

I wrote at the time of Schiavo that both sides surprised themselves with the virulence of their opposition to one another, drawing a parallel with the pre-civil war insurrectionist John Brown:

The gulf that has opened up today between Americans who believe that starving Terri Schiavo to death is wrong and those who believe it to be a tragic but necessary act has some parallels with the aftermath of the John Brown raid on Harper’s Ferry. Both sides believe they are in the right. Both are astonished at the other side’s lack of a moral compass. “Hypocrisy” cry those who wish Terri dead. “Callousness”scream the pro-Terri forces.

And more than that, it is the recognition that this huge divide exists not as some fancy political expression but as a living, breathing thing that has fueled the debate and turned it into into an “us versus them” cultural Armageddon. Both sides see the forces of darkness at work; people in favor of life seeing the “culture of death” in the ascendancy while the supporters who believe it was Terri’s wish to end her life see their opposition as “The American Taliban.”

The two sides couldn’t be farther apart. And looking across the divide at one another, each see strangers where they should see brothers and sisters.

The wounds from that battle have yet to heal completely. The incident radicalized the Christian right and drove many libertarians out of the party thus setting the stage for the coming bloodletting.

The problem for both factions is that there really is no place else for them to go. Libertarian hawks avoid the dovish Libertarian Party like the plague while a 3rd party effort involving social conservatives has been tried several times in the past and failed miserably (although the Temperance party managed to scare enough politicians to have them vote for prohibition).

Where the libertarians may finally bolt the GOP is over the fiscal mess made by big government social conservatives who seem to have taken over the party’s Congressional wing. With the President’s acquiescence, this group has done more to mortgage the future of America than any 2 Democratic Congresses. And, as a possible harbinger of the future, the Libertarian party in Montana and Missouri probably helped elect the Democratic Senator from those states:

GLUM Republicans might turn their attention to the Libertarian Party to vent their anger. Libertarians are a generally Republican-leaning constituency, but over the last few years, their discontent has grown plain. It isn’t just the war, which some libertarians supported, but the corruption and insider dealing, and particularly the massive expansion of spending. Mr Bush’s much-vaunted prescription drug benefit for seniors, they fume, has opened up another gaping hole in America’s fiscal situation, while the only issue that really seemed to energise congress was passing special laws to keep a brain-damaged woman on life support.

In two of the seats where control looks likely to switch, Missouri and Montana, the Libertarian party pulled more votes than the Democratic margin of victory. Considerably more, in Montana. If the Libertarian party hadn’t been on the ballot, and the three percent of voters who pulled the “Libertarian” lever had broken only moderately Republican, Mr Burns would now be in office.

Meanwhile, most of the social conservatives seem not to have learned anything from Tuesday. They are insisting that conservative social issues won the day and that this is the path back to the top the GOP should take. They point to all of the anti-gay marriage amendments that passed. They point to the victory against affirmative action in Michigan.

What they don’t seem to realize is that voters passed those ballot initiatives and then turned around and voted for Democrats. Moderate Democrats. Many of whom do not espouse those issues that they voted for on the ballot initiatives.

They also failed to see one of the biggest switches on election night; the Democrats got nearly 30% of people who identify themselves as “evangelical” Christians. If espousing conservative social issues is going to be the battle cry of Republicans in 2008, they will lose and lose big. Voters want fiscal responsibility and traditional marriage. But if they have to choose, they’ll take the party that can demonstrate responsibility with their tax money over a candidate who might support a gay person’s right to marry.

The social conservatives are not going to retreat back into the wings of the party any time soon. This is why I believe that unless a leader emerges who can unite these two factions, we are more than likely to see the libertarians bolt the party for greener pastures, especially if the Democrats demonstrate that they can be fiscally responsible. This could well happen before the 2008 election which would mean that contest could become a true re-alignment in American politics.

We saw something similar in the 1978-80 elections. Then the issue was the strength of the United States in the world in the face of Soviet expansionism. Conservative Democrats left their party in droves and ended up electing Ronald Reagan and a Republican Senate in 1980.

Don’t be surprised if a similar re-alignment takes place in 2008 with libertarians and many secular conservatives finally getting tired of the social conservative’s agenda. One thing is certain; the status quo is unacceptable and something is going to have to give.