Right Wing Nut House

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Ed Lasky of AT, Andrew Ian Dodge, and Vodkapundit’s Stephen Green for a discussion of the Tea Party Movement, the upcoming CPAC conference, and other hot issues making news.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

A good American political speech always has a strong component of patriotic reverence for America that pleases the ear and stirs the soul. The best of them explain the United States in terms that all of us can understand, and touch a deeply felt wellspring of love of country that resides in most of us just below the surface.

But talking about America in this fashion - what I will dub “Patriot Speak” - carries with it dangers as well. Not every politician can do it and sound the right note of honest, guileless, wholehearted love of country. Not all can strike exactly the right note of pride and humility, sincerity and cornpone earnestness, emotionalism and an appeal to reason and logic. It’s a balancing act that, when done correctly, can bring an audience to its feet in tears. When done poorly, it is indeed cringe-worthy.

In my lifetime, there were two politicians who had the ability at a drop of a hat to give a stemwinder oration guaranteed to fan the flames of patriotism among those within earshot. The first was Hubert Humphrey, a gigantic presence when he spoke despite his diminutive stature. This was a man who, when he spoke, was simply too big for the TV screens of the time His was a speaking style from a gentler age, when flowery language and exaggerated metaphor alternately uplifted his audience and invited them to despise the same enemies. Reading Humphrey’s famous 1948 convention speech in favor of the Democratic party’s civil rights plank, you have to remind yourself of the time it was given, as well as the temper of his audience:

For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two billion members of the human family, our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. And I know that we can, and I know that we shall began [sic] here the fuller and richer realization of that hope, that promise of a land where all men are truly free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely well.

My good friends, I ask my Party, I ask the Democratic Party, to march down the high road of progressive democracy. I ask this convention to say in unmistakable terms that we proudly hail, and we courageously support, our President and leader Harry Truman in his great fight for civil rights in America!

The speech electrified the convention - and drove Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats to the exits. Rarely has there been more historical proof of the power of the spoken word in politics.

Funny thing - if you listen to that speech, it doesn’t sound the least bit awkward or forced. You knew that Humphrey’s commitment to civil rights was in his soul, that it wasn’t just some position he took for political expediency. And when he spoke of America in such reverential tones, the “mystic chords of memory” were well and truly plucked in heartfelt fashion.

The other politician who could pull of a patriotic oration - probably in his sleep - was Ronald Reagan. I say that not to denigrate the Gipper but to simply point out what his biographer and other observers have said of him; Reagan was the living, breathing embodiment of American values and a particular kind of Americanism. It was an old fashioned kind of Americanism, perhaps not as relevant in 1980 as it was in 1950. But few cared about that. It’s how his audience felt that counted and there was no better politician at pulling people in and making them feel good about loving America. After a decade or more of ordinary folk being told that their patriotism was out of fashion, and even dangerous, Reagan told people it was ok to love America and to show it.

(Obama is not bad at all with Patriot Speak. But his rhetoric about change short circuits the connection to the past, ["hearkening to patriot graves,"] that is absolutely vital for his words, no matter how well delivered, to really resonate with a lot of people.)

But what if the politician may genuinely feel this love of country but, when trying to speak about it, comes off insincere, and even fake? Nixon’s efforts in this regard always grated. Carter’s too. Nixon never sounded real to me saying anything while Carter’s simpering, syrupy, orations always fell flat. Clinton rarely tried Patriot Speak beyond the pro forma utterances on formal occasions. Both Bushes were horrible at it, although #43 had his moments, such as his speeches after 9/11. I think in order to truly carry such sentimentality off, you have to be a first class orator - something both Bushes were definitely not.

Not so Sarah Palin, who may not be an “orator” in the classical sense but has won praise for her ability to connect at an emotional level with her audience. Evidently, Palin was a huge hit at Daytona this past weekend where they were running one of the most exciting sports events of the year; the Daytona 500.

I am not a NASCAR fan but what’s not to love about Daytona? If you doubt me, it’s evident you have not seen the race in Hi-Def and digital surround sound. Awesome.

But as a cultural happening, Daytona is where “real America” goes to party. I put “real America” in quotes because that is how they view themselves, not necessarily because it reveals any profound truths about who or what constitutes “real America.” Are they more “real” than a bunch of snobby upper east side writers who get together to talk about silly, pretentious things like when their next book that no one will buy is coming out? You betchya. Otherwise, not so much.

The former Alaskan governor was mobbed at every appearance. And in this sycophantic piece in the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, Palin let loose with a barrage of Patriot Speak that rang hollow and insincere:

“This is awesome,” said a slim Palin, wearing designer jeans, a smart charcoal coat and sky-high black stiletto heels. “It’s an All-Americana event. A good, patriotic, wonderful event that’s bringing a whole lot of people together. I think it’s good for our country.”

When asked what a trip to a swing state like Florida does for her political ambitions, the former Alaska governor said, “Haven’t thought a darn thing about the politics of this. I’m thinking about this good, active, speed-loving event that a lot of Alaskans, too, are really into. We’ve got our snow-machine races up there, and this is, of course, on a much greater scale, same type of sport though, same type of breath-taking, speed-loving, All-American event that we like to see up north.”

Palin doesn’t ordinarily have this effect on me. I can usually watch her and marvel at a speaking style that makes her so approachable, so homey. But this sort of Patriot Speak makes me cringe in embarrassment. And the idea that she hadn’t thought a “darn thing about the politics of this” made me want to puke. It’s clear that unlike Humphrey, Reagan, and many others, that she disrespects her audience, cynically manipulating them rather than showing deference to their deepest feelings. Only those already predisposed to love anything that comes out of her mouth can read the above and believe she is expressing anything genuine, or honest in those words.

Her words remind me some of the things I read on comment threads and forums on the right where some conservatives identify themselves as “patriots,” - actually referring to themselves as such - while spouting that anyone who disagrees with them is, by definition, not a patriot. I always thought that it was up to others to determine whether you were a patriot or not. Awarding oneself that designation always smacks me as prideful.

If I concerned myself with the matter, I might recommend that Palin work on her “Patriot Speak” or she will not succeed in broadening her support beyond those who already worship her. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Those who want to see through her act have largely already done so. Those that remain aren’t listening anyway.

Tim Pawlenty is a mainstream conservative governor in a traditionally liberal state. When I use the term “mainstream,” I mean simply that he is in the mainstream of Minnesota conservatism - decidedly less conservative than the heart of Republicanism in the south, but conservative enough for most of the rest of the GOP. This alone gives him a decent shot as an alternative to either Palin or Romney in the 2012 primaries.

Reading this long interview in Esquire, I was struck by the governor’s pragmatism and unflappability. Esquire’s Mark Warren threw enough bait into the water that Pawlenty could have easily blundered in his responses. Instead, the Minnesota governor coolly maneuvered through the minefields and came off looking reasonable, and thoughtful.

One thing is for sure; Pawlenty has a very good idea of where the GOP went wrong during their time in the majority:

“The Republicans had their shot not long ago to address the real needs and concerns of everyday Americans, and they blew it…. Over the time that they were there and had the leadership opportunity, they blew it. We got fired for a reason.”

“The party got into a whole bunch of corruption and personal scandals that weren’t compatible with the principles it claimed to stand for.”

“We just lost our way. You can’t say that your hallmark issues are that we’re going to control spending, keep taxes low, and make government accountable, and then go to Washington and do the opposite…. Let’s face it, when Republicans had total control over it, they didn’t do what they said they were gonna do.”

“The marketplace measurement in politics is something called an election…. And in 2006 and 2008, the marketplace was telling the Republicans, We prefer the products and services of your competitors.”

That may still be the case in 2010 if the GOP tries to recycle an agenda better left in the 1980’s. Conservative principles may be deathless, but issues are not. Compared to Palin, Pawlenty has a lot going for him in this regard. Where Palin has a laundry list of resentments that resonate with the base, Pawlenty has a record of achieving concrete results by applying conservative principles to governance. That puts him lightyears ahead of Palin in my book.

Like most GOP governors, Pawlenty is a font of new and innovative ideas when it comes to applying conservative principles to a governing philosophy. Education, health care, mass transit, and other issues important at the state level were addressed to varying degrees by Pawlenty by growing government as little as possible. He also addressed budget shortfalls by generally cutting spending and not raising taxes, although he did raise the cigarette tax and tuition at Minnesota state schools among other “fee” increases to close the budget deficit.

Along with Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, and now Ambassador to China, former Utah governor John Huntsman, Pawlenty represents a new kind of Republican governor - pragmatic leadership buttressed by maintaining good relationships with the legislature, and plugging in conservative policy ideas to address the problems of ordinary people.

If this be the future of Republicanism, bring it on.

This pragmatic conservatism comes through in the Esquire interview as Pawlenty addressed what he would have done about the financial meltdown, a stim bill, and the bailouts:

Whether the threats or doomsday scenarios that were painted were real or partially real or not real at all. We won’t know the answer to that, but we do know that some very bright people said that we faced doomsday, and there were other very bright people who said that, at the very least, the danger was overstated, and this notion that they were too big to fail was untested or untrue.

I’ve argued, at least as it related to the stimulus bill as opposed to TARP, that there were things that we could have and should have done, but it should have been much more targeted. For example, instead of spending $800 billion in a stimulus package, I think we would have gotten much more bang for the buck if we would have done two simple things: focused on tax cuts that would have put cash immediately into the average citizen’s pocket, and two, put money into bread-and-butter infrastructure projects like roads and bridges that could be done quickly. Of the $800 billion stimulus package, only about $50 billion, give or take, actually went into roads and bridges. It was a paltry amount compared to the overall size of the bill.

As for the other bailouts, I did not support the car-company bailout, either. They should have been allowed to go bankrupt — in fact, they [entered] bankruptcy, most of ‘em. That’s the way that they’re going to get most effectively restructured. And I think the same could be said for many of the financial institutions. The idea that we’re gonna bail out every major bank in the country with the exception of Lehman Brothers is ridiculous. Why let Lehman fail and not all the others? These markets have to correct. And the answer can’t be for every problem that emerges as a result of reckless behavior, the government’s gonna come in and bail everybody out. I was talkin’ to people this morning who run small businesses. Where’s their bailout?

The narrative as it is presented today - the trillions we spent on TARP, bailing out the banks, the auto takeover, and the stimulus package - is that without these measures, we would have had a catastrophic, worldwide depression.

As Pawlenty says later, “We’ll never know” if that scenario would have played out if we had allowed the banks to go into bankruptcy, along with the GM and Chrysler (who, as the governor points out, went into bankruptcy anyway), or if the stim, bill had been smaller and more targeted in its spending and tax cuts. Yes, there are many economists who agree with Paul Krugman that Obama saved the world, but there are also many others who disagree to one degree or another. Why their criticisms should be any more or less valid than the dominant narrative that has emerged about these government actions mitigating a crisis is a mystery.

Nor do I believe that the choice was between doing nothing and having the government massively intervene the way it did. That’s a political take on what might have been accomplished short of the trillions in bailout monies advanced by the Fed and the government. The fact is, there was talk at the time of managed bankruptcies, forced mergers, and other measures short of simply handing over money to companies that it was claimed were “too big to fail.” It was never tried, so it is impossible to say if it would have accomplished much of the same thing; i.e., an economy in the toilet but a ruinous depression avoided.

I think Pawlenty is the man to make that case. He supports regulation of the banks, a modified stimulus bill, health care reform, but a firm belief in the idea that market forces are what underlies the American economy:

I think both sides have people who have genuine feelings and beliefs about what they think the proper direction of the country should be. I just think the other side’s wrong. I don’t question motives or assign some sort of label. But I think what President Obama and the Democratic Congress are offering is a dangerous direction for the country. Not just because it’s gonna cost us more, not just because taxes are gonna go up, not just because it expands government, but because of what it does to the American spirit. As I view it, there is an American spirit that is associated with the kinds of attitudes about taking risk, about taking responsibility, about a sense of respect for the private market and the power that it has in creating and rewarding wealth. The government doesn’t do that — the government redistributes, but it doesn’t actually create wealth or prosperity. And the health-care debate is a pretty good proxy for this struggle between these two views. And in the case of the Republicans, what they see and what they’re rightly concerned about is that it’s another increment down the road toward government taking over more and more things. And it worries people.

Is Obama a socialist?

You know, I don’t think name-calling is helpful. I’ve done my share of that, so I’m not Pollyannaish about how the political process works. But as a general proposition, I think these are serious times, the country’s in significant danger, and I think we need people who are thoughtful. We’re gonna have sharp differences, but we need to debate those in a way that’s constructive and civil. I think President Obama is governing as a movement liberal. I don’t think that rises to the level of being a socialist.

This puts Pawlenty in the mainstream of conservatism in about 75% of the country - and proves that he can handle a hostile interviewer. (Warren spent a lot of time making statements that defended Obama, much less time asking Pawlenty any questions that might reveal something about the man.)

Beyond that, note that he makes a classic defense of conservative principles against the onslaught of liberal orthodoxy on growing the size of government to meet challenges. And he frames this argument in terms of American exceptionalism - the “American Spirit” he calls it - while clearly delineating between the role of government and the role of private citizens.

Clearly, Pawlenty has given these issues and concepts a great deal of thought. This comes out in his statement on why he might run in 2012:

I think the country’s in trouble. And I think I have a pretty clear sense of the values and principles that have made this country great. I’ve had a chance to govern and lead with those in mind, with some significant success in Minnesota. And I think the country needs that kind of leadership and insight and perspective. So through my PAC, I’m going to share my beliefs across the country. And I’m gonna take the next year to see how that goes and make my decision late in 2010 or in early 2011.

His bid is still a very long shot. He will not generate the kind of excitement that Sarah Palin would if she chooses to run, nor will he possess the bottomless resources of a Romney should Mitt choose to throw his hat into the ring again. He will not capture much of the Republican base, nor attract much interest in the south generally speaking. He is not an inspiring speaker by any means.

But Pawlenty is a candidate brimming with ideas, and an idea of what kind of leadership the country needs right now. How far that will take him is anyone’s guess.

First, let’s dispense with the notion that Obama has not cut taxes for a very large majority of Americans. In fact, the administration went a step further and “refunded” monies to people who don’t pay any taxes in the first place - a giveaway little noticed at the time.

But most critics are focusing on the payroll tax cut that grants an individual an extra $400 a year in take home, and a married couple filing jointly $800. This is a tax cut - period. Of course, at the end of the year when you do your taxes, your calculated tax includes that extra cash so your refund may be slightly smaller. It’s not like you didn’t earn the money and don’t owe taxes on it. The government just decided to allow you to keep a little more of what you earned each pay period by reducing the amount they withheld from your check in payroll taxes.

Some administration opponents are trying to make the case that because this does nothing to decrease the average American’s tax bill that it is not a tax cut. Technically, they may have a case. But if you ask the average taxpayer if taking home more cash every week is a tax cut, they would almost certainly say yes.

It was a good plan, although fairly modest in its workings. It didn’t help the economy much at all and the reason most Americans think their taxes haven’t been cut is probably due to the fact that the average taxpayer’s take home pay was increased by only around $13 a week.

Also, concentrating solely on the reduction in withholding is disingenuous. There were other tax cuts in the stim bill (they didn’t work either) as well as extensions or enhancements of Bush era tax cuts that the president - being disingenuous himself - is claiming as his own.

Here are a few:

First time home buyer credit: Enacted under Bush, enhanced up to $8000 credit for buying a new home.

Reduction or elimination of sales tax and use taxes paid on qualified new car purchases. (Expired 1/1/10).

American Opportunity Tax Credit on college scholarships. Changed the name from the “HOPE scholarship credit” and enhanced and relaxed rules for broader participation.

Expanded and enhanced energy tax credits already in place.

Then there are “tax cuts” that primarily targeted Americans who don’t pay any taxes at all. Including these measures allows the president to say he has “cut” taxes for 95% of Americans:

Child Tax Credit. The Stim bill enhanced the child tax credit by making a larger portion of the credit refundable for 2009 and 2010. Even if you paid no income tax, you can still receive the money.

The Stim bill increased the Earned Income Tax Credit. This is another refundable credit that allows taxpayers that pay no income tax to get thousands of dollars “refunded” to them.

There were also a couple of items in the stim bill that either extended Bush era cuts for small business or enhanced existing programs.

What we can glean from this thumbnail summary is that both sides are right, and both sides are being disingenuous in picking and choosing what constitutes a tax cut and what doesn’t. The facts, however, are clear; taxes were cut for a large majority of Americans while the president is taking credit for some tax cuts not of his own design.

I think it very revealing of the philosophy of both sides in this argument as it relates to taxes in general and how the government funds itself.

Whose money is it anyway? It appears to me that on the left, there is the feeling that whatever you earn belongs to the government and it is up to government to decide how much of your money you can keep. Admittedly, this is put rather crudely but I think it an accurate reflection of what liberals believe, at least subconsciously. It is philosophically satisfying for many liberals to reduce what the government withholds from your paycheck because it signifies the government’s power to determine how much of your own property you are entitled to - even if the amount is paltry as it is in the stim bill.

Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that your earnings are your property and that the citizen consents to have the government take that portion it needs to operate efficiently. Ideally, we give our consent by electing representatives whose philosophy reflects that basic, underlying creed of personal liberty and the sanctity of private property. If taxes become too high, we elect people who promise to ease the burden. That also, is a form of consent.

I never hear the word “consent” from the left when it comes to a citizen parting with their property for taxes. Is it an important distinction? I believe it is indeed and that this fundamental outlook on taxes highlights a huge divide between right and left.

So perhaps all the hub-bub on the right about Obama not cutting taxes for the vast majority of Americans has more to do with a basic disagreement over whose money we’re talking about to begin with. Liberal governments appear to take an entirely different view of property than conservatives ones. This manifests itself in support for expanded eminent domain powers by the left, and a more limited definition of “private” property.

But if we’re going to criticize the president, let’s do it for his disingenuousness in claiming credit for tax provisions he had absolutely nothing to do with creating.

It would be easy to dismiss the deficit reduction plan offered by Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) a couple of weeks ago as a non-starter politically. Indeed, ordinarily I would castigate either a Republican or Democrat for offering such a pie in the sky, politically unfeasible plan with regard to anything.

But what makes Ryan’s deficit reduction plan worthy of serious discussion is what it portends for the future; that the longer we go without addressing the underlying causes of the deficit, the harder it is going to be to save the US from bankruptcy.

Even liberals were impressed. Ezra Klein totally disagreed with it but called the plan “daring.” Ygelsias said of the plan that Ryan “has gone where I thought no Republican would dare to tread.” But the establishment Republicans tiptoed around Ryan and virtually disavowed his efforts at finding a way forward. Ryan himself said he wasn’t speaking for his fellow Republicans, thus letting them off the hook.

Ryan’s plan can be considered very stiff medicine indeed. He calls for the elimination of Medicare and Medicaid as we know it by substituting vouchers that seniors can purchase to buy their own insurance plans. The value of these vouchers will go up in succeeding years but - and here’s the kicker - they will not rise as fast as the cost of medical care. Basically, it is rationing health care through individual choices.

Bruce Bartlett writing in Forbes, gives us the barebones outline of Ryan’s bitter pill deficit reduction plan:

[I]t is really heroic that Rep. Ryan did not shrink away from confronting head-on the necessity of slashing entitlements for the elderly in order to achieve his goal of abolishing the federal debt without an increase in the tax-to-GDP ratio.

On Social Security Ryan would reduce initial benefits for retirees by changing the benefit formula. Private accounts would be established immediately for those under age 55 that would be partially funded by payroll taxes.

Ryan would also raise the age to qualify for Medicare from 65 to 69 years and 6 months for people born in the year 2022. After the year 2021, the Medicare program as we know it would cease to exist. Instead of receiving health benefits through Medicare, those over age 65 would instead receive government vouchers worth $5,900. These vouchers would be adjusted for age and health status, which would put the average voucher at $11,000. Medicare beneficiaries would buy private health insurance with the vouchers.

These amounts are considerably less than estimated Medicare spending per enrollee in 2022, so there is a sharp cut in spending right off the bat. Furthermore, these amounts would only be indexed to half the historical rate of price inflation for medical care. This means that the real, inflation-adjusted voucher amount would fall continuously. To cover the shortfall, Medicare beneficiaries would either have to pay out of their own pockets for medical care or buy private insurance over and above what could be purchased with the Medicare vouchers.

Ryan also calls for the elimination of the tax exclusion for employer health care plans. This would mean a huge tax increase for workers who would have to pay income tax on the cost to the employer of their insurance.

The plan is political poison - but illustrative of the kinds of draconian measures that will be necessary to get us out of this deficit mess. In this way, Ryan has done a huge service to the American people by having the political courage to present this plan with all its pain, and the political opening you can drive a Mack truck through if you were a Democrat seeking to make hay out of it.

The GOP showed in the health care debate how easy it is to demagogue Medicare cuts; just pretend that you never supported the idea of cutting Medicare and lambaste the Democrats for wanting to cut $500 billion over 10 years. You instantly become a hero to seniors who go nuts if you even whisper about cutting Medicare. They don’t know that as recently as 2007, Republicans were calling for similar cuts in Medicare. And thus will be the fate of any politician or party who seeks to fiddle with Medicare reimbursements or costs.

This is a recipe for total disaster, as the former GAO chief David Walker has been trying to tell us for the last 4 years:

“History has shown that when America faces difficult challenges and when it rises to the occasion, anything is possible,” he said in an interview. Yet “a fiscal cancer,” he said, “is growing within us, that if we don’t treat, can have catastrophic consequences.”

For more than a year that’s been Walker’s message to Americans. It is part of what he calls a Fiscal Wakeup Tour, an itinerant, bi-partisan lecture panel known as the Concord Coalition, which is traveling to college campuses in advance of the 2008 presidential elections. Accompanying Walker are economists from the left-leaning Brookings Institution and the conservative Heritage Foundation (usually Isabel Sawhill from the former and Stuart Butler from the latter). They may disagree about the potential solution, but they are in accord that a problem exists.

The crux of the campaign: to spread the word that Americans and their government are living beyond their means and that fiscal fecklessness is imperiling the country’s living standards.

Here we are, 3 years after that column was written and the prescience of Walker and others who have been shouting in the wilderness for so long about how absolutely imperative it is to address our long term deficit problem becomes obvious. We are only at the beginning of our “unsustainable” deficits. With the debt ceiling primed to rise above our GDP for the first time, we will get a very close look at what Walker, Ryan, and others have been grousing about; less and less government spending devoted to items like defense, education, the environment, and aid to the poor with more and more of the budget being forced to fund social security and Medicare.

When I profiled Rep. Ryan here, I highlighted the kind of muscular conservatism he stands for; meaty, intellectually coherent, and now add politically courageous to that thumbnail.

Bartlett challenges the tea party movement to embrace Ryan:

I think it is irresponsible to say, as almost all tea party goers do, that they are unalterably opposed to tax increases without specifying spending cuts–large cuts in popular programs that go far beyond foreign aid, earmarks and even a budget freeze. And if they are serious they must admit that coming anywhere close to budget balance cannot be done without slashing Social Security and Medicare benefits. There’s no way around that and anyone who says so is either ignorant or a fool.

When I see people like Paul Ryan addressing large tea party conventions and receiving standing ovations for his budget plan, maybe I will begin to think it is possible to avoid a massive tax increase. But right now, I don’t see even the tiniest glimmer of understanding among the tea party crowd about the true nature of our budget problem and what it would take to avoid a major tax increase.

The next time I see pictures of a tea party crowd I will be looking carefully for signs that say “Abolish Medicare,” “Raise the Retirement Age” and “Support the Ryan Plan!” I won’t hold my breath waiting.

Indeed, those familiar with this site know that I have, on several occasions, called out conservatives for their lack of specificity in defining what they mean by “limited government.” Where would you cut? Whose ox would you gore? How would you be able to do it when the political winds blow so strongly against you? In response, I’ve gotten vague intimations of some kind of “Super-Federalism” that would transfer most of what the federal government does now to the states, or a “let them eat cake” attitude where many on the right wish to roll back not only LBJ’s Great Society, but also FDR’s New Deal. Some wish to go even further and set up what would amount to a pre-constitutional government where the states would be supreme - “an Articles of Confederation on steroids” I’ve called it.

Ryan’s plan shows it won’t be easy, that it won’t come by only cutting spending, and that not only our lawmakers, but voters as well must become responsible citizens of the republic in order to bite down - hard - and do what is necessary to save us from our own profligacy. A nation that defeated fascism, communism, and can rise above its own sordid past and elect a black man president can do anything it sets its mind to.

Just give us a couple of hundred more Paul Ryans, please.

Are you as economics challenged as I am? Good - you’ll enjoy this. If you’re an economist by trade or got your PHD and are driving a cab, or working at The Gap, you may want to skip this.

Unbeknown to most Americans - unless you read the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, foreign newspapers or can stomach Paul Krugman for more than 200 words - there has been a full blown panic in Europe this last fortnight or so over the state of the Greek economy. Why this is true is kind of murky to me but it has something to do with the huge deficit the country is running and how close they are to a sovereign default - that is, the Greeks will default on on their debt to the rest of the world. This has the potential of starting a series of defaults of the weaker EU economies comprising about 10% of EU GDP.

A nice, simple, easy to understand definition from the TimesOnline:

The failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 symbolises the crisis. The biggest corporate bankruptcy in US history transformed a credit crunch into full-blown financial panic. But Lehman was a private company. A country unable to refinance its debt is a much bigger problem.

Greece has accumulated a massive public debt of € 300 billion. Its budget deficit amounts to almost 13 per cent of national income. Its Government has pledged austerity measures to reduce the deficit to 9 per cent of GDP in the next year and to 3 per cent in 2012. These projections are — and this is a euphemism — improbable. If financial confidence evaporates, then the contagion might spread to other indebted European economies. Sober analysts speak of the greatest test for the single European currency since its launch in 1999, and even of the possibility of Greece’s exit, voluntary or forced, from the euro.

The case against a bailout is formidable. No one forced Greece to borrow. Its previous Government, which lost office in October, understated the size of the budget deficit. A rescue is in effect asking the taxpayers of other eurozone countries to pay for irresponsible decisions over which they had no control. The main losers would be Germany’s prudent taxpayers. A rescue might also destabilise Greece. The prospect of foreigners attaching conditions to how the economy is run would be politically explosive.

In short, this is a two pronged crisis; not only is Greece up to its eyeballs in red ink but the other shoe that is poised to drop is that no one is exactly sure what should be done about it.

If we were talking about a Third World country, the solution would be found in the International Monetary Fund who would be more than happy to loan Greece some American taxpayer money to get out from under. Alas, no self-respecting First World country would be caught dead accepting loans from the IMF. Such things are just not done, even though Greece may go under and take a good portion of the European economy with it.

There are other interesting aspects to this crisis; the old government hiding the extent of the debt - evidently with the help of Goldman-Sachs. And Greek workers are none too pleased either. Rather than “taking one for the team,” government unions are saying “cut his not mine.” Pay close attention because when it becomes necessary in this country to cut government workers pensions and pay, we’ll look a lot like Greece.

Niall Ferguson writing in the Financial Times:

That leaves just three possibilities: one of the most excruciating fiscal squeezes in modern European history – reducing the deficit from 13 per cent to 3 per cent of gross domestic product within just three years; outright default on all or part of the Greek government’s debt; or (most likely, as signalled by German officials on Wednesday) some kind of bail-out led by Berlin. Because none of these options is very appealing, and because any decision about Greece will have implications for Portugal, Spain and possibly others, it may take much horse-trading before one can be reached.

Yet the idiosyncrasies of the eurozone should not distract us from the general nature of the fiscal crisis that is now afflicting most western economies. Call it the fractal geometry of debt: the problem is essentially the same from Iceland to Ireland to Britain to the US. It just comes in widely differing sizes.

What we in the western world are about to learn is that there is no such thing as a Keynesian free lunch. Deficits did not “save” us half so much as monetary policy – zero interest rates plus quantitative easing – did. First, the impact of government spending (the hallowed “multiplier”) has been much less than the proponents of stimulus hoped. Second, there is a good deal of “leakage” from open economies in a globalised world. Last, crucially, explosions of public debt incur bills that fall due much sooner than we expect.

So Germany, reluctantly, and even though they could probably ride out the storm of a financial crisis if Greece and a few other weak EU sisters were to go under, appears ready to pony up and put its own taxpayers on the line in order to save the Euro and hence, the cornerstone of the EU itself:

European leaders, facing a crucial test for the credibility of their common currency, promised “determined and coordinated action” to safeguard the euro as they sought to persuade jittery bond market investors that Greece would not be allowed to default on its government debt.

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, also said that the European Union would monitor closely Greece’s pledges to reduce its alarming budget deficit, and would propose measures for Athens drawing on the expertise of the International Monetary Fund.

Further work by finance ministers on assistance for Greece, and the conditions that would be attached to any aid, will take place early next week. But the initial reaction in the markets was disappointment at the lack of detail in the announcement. The euro dropped 0.8 percent to $1.3630.

Mr. Van Rompuy, who insisted that the Greek government “has not requested any financial support,” issued his statement after meeting leaders of Greece, France and Germany in Brussels before the meeting of all 27 European Union national leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said before the announcement: “Greece won’t be left alone but there are rules and these rules must be adhered to. On this basis we will agree on a statement.”

As good bankers are wont to do, they will perform feats of legerdemain, hiding the transfer of cash from Germany and France (probably), making it appear that it is anything except a massive bailout from one government to another. This will save Greek sensibilities and perhaps assuage the feelings of German taxpayers.

But don’t kid yourself. This crisis is far from over and might yet reach our shores, precipitating another meltdown in the financial sector. Much would apparently have to happen in Europe for that scenario to come true, including defaults by some of the larger economies like Great Britain. But as this phantom recovery continues in the US, it is well to bear in mind that outside forces could yet derail this weak economic comeback.

It’s pretty hard whether you are a Republican or Democrat, not to have a strong opinion about the abilities - or lack thereof - of Sarah Palin. The problem, as I see it, is that most on both sides paint the former Alaska governor in cartoonish colors thus making them incapable of evaluating her politically or personally in any kind of reasoned, rational way.

While my opinion of Palin hasn’t changed since it became clear that her depthless intellect and lazy habits of mind made her extraordinarily unready for national office, the more I see of her, the more I want to understand her appeal - and figure out what drives the left nuts about her.

Some on the left and right compare her to Ronald Reagan. That’s just not happening for me. The only similarity I can see is a superficial likeness in the way that people respond to her rhetoric - a pale echo of the Gipper’s soaring imagery and heartfelt sincerity when speaking about “that America.”

“That America” is not necessarily the “real America.” America is many things to many people. We all define our own “American” reality. I daresay that an African American’s America is slightly different than the America of a conservative southern Christian. Neither vision is wrong or evil. Our reality is shaped by our experience, our upbringing, our schooling, our friends and family, and outside influences.

Reagan - and to a less successful degree Palin - sought to hack into the American memory where most of our mistakes and crimes of omission and commission are either blocked by a firewall or deleted. What’s left is the “shining city on a hill” - the aspirational notion of an exceptional nation inhabited by exceptional people; self reliant, fiercely independent, contemptuous of government/authority, and bound by a citizen-government compact that doesn’t allow deviation from the template that was laid down when America was a coastal republic of 7 million people.

Change - dynamic, incremental, or otherwise - is virtually unknown in “that America.” Reagan was enough of a pragmatist to realize that it was impossible to repeal Johnson’s Great Society and FDR’s New Deal. But now Sarah Palin comes along and, while very short on specifics, hints at just such a revolution; a willy-nilly federalism capped by what Ambinder calls in this brilliant article, a “relitigating” of the social contract that has been the basis for life in America for the last 50 years:

Palin, writes Jonathan Raban in an excellent essay in the New York Review of Books, has an “exceptionally canny political instinct for connecting with her own kind.” It has been noted that her conservatism is resentment-based, and is fueled and nourished by the specter of elite mistreatment. (Palin is savvy enough to tease back.) But it is more than that. More than a list of grievances, Palin mixes Nixonian derision for those who think they know better with an aspirational dimension that motivates the middle class to vote. Out of the tony leagues of Washington and New York, she is — well, an Idahoan by birth, an exurbanite mother, able to expurgate the Republican Party of its own cosmopolitan tendencies. (This is one reason why the McCain campaign could not tend to her.) She is, as my friend @thetonylee says, “a hybrid of Nixon and Buchanan.”

The only presidential candidate who is able to put the boots to Obama and get away with it. What’s she running for? Not the question. What’s she running against? Not just Rockefeller Republicanism and the media, or pointy-headed law lecturer presidents, or Katie Couric: she wants to relitigate a bunch of issues that once were settled but now seem to be unraveling. The unrestricted embrace of immigration and the dilution of an American culture. Overweening Greenism. A complicated socially engineered tax code. A much larger role for government (embraced by the president who said that the era of Big Government Was Over and his successor, who was a Republican). The rule of experts. Even the concept of bipartisanship itself.

Ambinder is convinced that the way she is projecting herself smells suspiciously like she is a candidate in 2012. I think she wants to be but is being very cautious. She is leaving her options wide open, which is very smart, while making small moves on the national stage to both test the waters and leave herself an exit should the situation change in the next 10 months.

She can do this because she is the most popular Republican in the country right now. Even though a clear majority of Republicans don’t want to see her as president, an even larger number say that Palin “shares their values.” A majority of the GOP also believes that Palin represents a “new direction” for the party.

What is that direction? Ambinder:

In Searching for Whitopia, Rich Benjamin defines of a geo-racial balkanization that gives Palin-like candidates a natural base: towns like Couer d’Alene Idaho, with a “diversified economic base,” a pro-business regulatory environment, a commitment to “quality of life” issues, and — a 95% ethnic homogeneity. Coeur D’Aleners were migrants from the California of the 1990s; they live now in Colorado and the suburbs of Phoenix and are slowly pushing their way around the Sunbelt. Benjamin notes the “cultural, ancestral and implicitly racial” bond to their communities. The new residents come looking for land and living space; the long-time residents just want as little disruption as possible. Right now, there is enormous disruption. It is the same disruption that Democrats believe redounds to their benefit; depressed wages, exotic financial deals, government spending cuts (which feeds the disruption), what one Palin watcher calls the “downstream effects” of a country that has lived beyond its means for 60 years.

George W. Bush never spoke this language. He was an evangelical convert, more influenced by his advisers Catholicism than by, say, Palin’s Assembly of God charismatics. She is pure in ways the rich son of Connecticut could never dream of.

These simple folk of Idaho aren’t so simple. They get their news from talk radio and new media; and Palin speaks in 140-word epigrams: fragments that are icky to the ears of more polished speakers but convey meta-data — she understands this. What’s most appealing about Palin to these exurbanites, I think, is that the big Elite Crucible tore her apart — and she rose again, stood up, straightened her dress, and is now confronting her tormentors.

Palin speaks to a restlessness among conservatives who are uncomfortable with change. In the tea party movement, there is much hearkening back to a time when Americans didn’t need government so much (more realistically, government simply wasn’t there). While the fringes of the movement may not support much of any kind of government at all, the majority of tea partiers appear to be much more pragmatic in their criticism.

They may see a need for government in some areas but beyond anything else, they want the president and Congress - both parties - to adhere to founding principles. There is no reason this can’t be done while change occurs. Respecting individual freedom, acknowledging personal responsibility, adhering to the concept of constitutionally limited government, and following the rule of law are all under attack, and have been under both Democratic and Republican presidents.

I like to think that the linchpin that holds these principles together is prudence. And no one can make the argument that any of the last 3 presidents have demonstrated prudence when it comes to governing America.

Russell Kirk on prudence; one of his Ten Conservative Principles:

Burke agrees with Plato that in the statesman, prudence is chief among virtues. Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity. Liberals and radicals, the conservative says, are imprudent: for they dash at their objectives without giving much heed to the risk of new abuses worse than the evils they hope to sweep away. As John Randolph of Roanoke put it, Providence moves slowly, but the devil always hurries. Human society being complex, remedies cannot be simple if they are to be efficacious. The conservative declares that he acts only after sufficient reflection, having weighed the consequences. Sudden and slashing reforms are as perilous as sudden and slashing surgery.

It’s almost as if Kirk read the health care reform bill. Or the prescription drug benefit. Or even the AUMF resolution. We have an imprudent government and as such, it has rejected First Principles in favor of the temporary political aggrandizement of the elites.

Palin articulates this uneasiness, tapping into the resentment held by those who don’t want their old shoe America to disappear. The people sense things are moving too fast, careening out of control. The budget and deficit are symptomatic. It is the abandonment of prudence by the governing elite that has unhinged the forces of change and no one appears to be in control - or care much where we end up.

She wants to take us back to a place and a time that never really existed except in the imaginations of “that America.” It won’t work - it never has worked. Reagan was able to capture this yearning, but governed prudently and pragmatically. In that sense, he was always a disappointment to the “true believers” who thought he had been captured by Jim Baker and the inside the beltway elite. “Let Reagan be Reagan” was the plaintive cry of the James Watts, Richard Vigueires, and other movement conservatives who placed their hopes in drastically rolling back government on Reagan’s shoulders. The Gipper decided that governing and winning was better than slashing and burning, while going down to defeat.

That may be the real danger of a Palin presidency. She is not pragmatic nor do I sense much prudence in her either. That would require self-reflection - something that she clearly has eschewed in favor of “going with her gut” on all except calculating her own personal, political future. Basically ignorant not because she is stupid but because she is lazy, the half formed opinions that spout from her during her speeches may be enough to satisfy her legions of worshipers but, as we are finding with President Obama, translate poorly into a governing philosophy. If Palin were to beat the odds and win, no doubt we would see a continuation of the “perpetual campaign” that passes for leadership and governance from Obama.

So might she win?

Not a single other Republican presidential candidate can build a crowd like Palin, can run against something like Palin (be it Washington, the media, the McCain campaign or Obama); no one speaks to the resentment/aspirational conservatives like she does; no one’s life has better exemplified the way they perceive their struggle against the elite. We like to think about presidential primaries in paradigms, but candidates who fit with the times often find ways to completely subvert established paradigms.

Yes she can.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, I welcome Ed Lasky and Larrey Anderson of American Thinker and Fausta Wertz for a discussion of several issues of importance currently generating interest on the net and elsewhere.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

Some might believe the idea of writing 1500 words about toilet paper to be a complete waste of time. Of course, that means that reading 1500 words about toilet paper would be an even bigger waste of time. But before you click away from what, on the surface, would seem to be a throwaway post, I want to engage your mind and stir your soul about the importance, the efficacy, and the sheer wonder of this absolutely essential household product.

Have you ever contemplated what our civilization would be like without toilet paper? We’d be stuck using old copies of the New York Times or Washington Post - sort of like spreading shi*t on sh*t, although if newspapers wish to survive, perhaps they could start a movement to ban bathroom tissue. Think of the extra millions of copies newspaper companies would sell. People might not read them, but in our modern society, products with more than one purpose have a better chance of surviving.

Still think I’m off my nut?Au contraire, bon ami. I believe there is a direct correlation between the economic health and spiritual well being of a society and the quality and selection of the bathroom tissue it offers.

It is unknown when humans even began to care about cleaning themselves after defecating. The fossil record is silent on the issue and archeological evidence from paleo-human campsites is lacking.

It was probably some Cro-Magnon woman who got tired of sleeping with a stinky man and pointed out the advantages of cleaning oneself after doing his business. Since we all know that women’s stools don’t smell, this is logical (neither do women stink when they sweat, or perhaps men don’t notice it because female perspiration is an aphrodisiac to most of us).

It was the Chinese who first figured out in the second century AD that their invention of paper had applications far beyond the ordinary purpose of being a surface upon which writing might be stored and shared. A fanatically clean society, the use of paper to wipe one’s bum must have seemed a much better option to the Chinese than bamboo grass which, unless you are careful, is capable of cutting the flesh like a Ginsu knife. (The Greeks apparently used a sea shell to scrape the area clean. Try that without letting out a yelp of pain.)

Paper was used in various forms and shapes by succeeding cultures. But it was a highly discriminatory product. Only the rich could afford paper while the middling classes and poor were stuck with other, decidedly less comfortable and efficient products.

It took American ingenuity to invent egalitarian toilet paper. Wikpedia says it was a fellow by the name of Joseph Gayetty who developed the first commercially available TP in the world in 1857. The product had a few drawbacks, however. It came in small sheets for one. Then there was the problem of splinters, since the process of manufacturing soft, smooth, quilted, or multi-ply paper was a few decades away. It doesn’t take much imagination to experience the pain that would be felt if one were to be unfortunate enough to have a splinter lodged in your anus. True love would be your wife assisting you in removing it.

It wasn’t until 1935 when Northern Tissue advertised “splinter-free” bathroom tissue that the modern technological age began and industrial society was poised to reach its peak of perfection. I shudder to think that I might have been born in an era without Charmin or other premium brands of TP.

It should be noted that there is still something of a stigma attached to the product. Why this is so relates to our shame regarding any discussion of the private parts of the body. That, and the indelicate nature of what the product is used for. But really, when you think about it, why should shame be attached to a wonderfully useful product for which everyone has need? There isn’t a soul alive or dead who could honestly say that they were indifferent about the necessity of utilizing this product. It as universally essential to daily life as Hellman’s Mayonaise or Plochman’s Yellow Mustard.

Hopefully, this attitude is changing thanks to a groundbreaking series of commercials for Charmin TP that features animated bears who are actually seen almost using the product. That, of course, is the final barrier that needs to be broken. Once the Charmin Bears are seen wiping, we will have a new normal for bathroom tissue commercials. There will be a scramble among Northern, Scott, and the other giants of the industry to show their product in use. I await this day with much anticipation for it will be then that toilet paper can come out of the water closet and breathe the fresh air of a deserved, respected notoriety.

We have few jokes about toilet paper in our culture. That’s because of its ubiquitousness, as well as the superb quality of the tissue that is generally available even to the poorest among us. I did find a rather funny Chuck Norris/Jack Bauer truism. Playing off the idea that some toilet paper has celebrities printed on the roll:

They once made a Chuck Norris toilet paper, but it wouldn’t take sh*t from anybody.

Socialist societies overflow with TP jokes. That’s because when such a basic necessity is part of a command economy, there will never be enough and its quality will be a joke. This brings to mind P.J. O’Rourke’s masterpiece Holidays in Hell where his visit to the Soviet Union in the early 80’s was painted as a nightmare of shortages, and standing in line for hours just to purchase a couple of rolls of toilet paper.

This incredible report from a sociologist in Russia describes how the Stalinist state designed one kind of toilet paper:

My view is that the development and usage of toilet paper has a much neglected ‘cultural’, as opposed to crudely ‘economic’, aspect. I remember using something called ‘Izal’ - a sort of hard, crumply, medicated affair, prone to splitting under excessive pressure. It was clearly designed and manufactured by an anally retentive Methodist sworn to clean living, clean air and clean bums. It came in boxes especially designed to keep use of paper to a minimum. Each sheet had to be withdrawn singly and was usually the devil’s own job to extract. Sort of thing one found in the lower middle class household of Stalinist persuasion that I inhabited during my childhood years…. It never did me any harm, honest.

And Obama wants our government to have a big say in the design of cars?

If you read between the lines of this old Russian joke about toilet paper, you can catch the utter helplessness that people feel in a society that is incapable of addressing their most basic comforts:

A woman walking in the street is carrying a bag full of rolls of toilet paper.

A passer-by opens his mouth, “Hey, mother, where did you buy it?”

“Buy? Are you crazy? Where could I buy it nowadays? They are five years old. I am taking them back from the cleaners.”

And, of course, there are dozens of variations on the newspaper Pravda (Truth) being better utilized for duty in the water closet than actually finding out what was going on in the Soviet Union at the time. Those humorous anecdotes also say something profound about a society where attacking the state by smearing excrement over its propaganda organ is a way to fight back against the stultifying nature of Communism.

In contrast, the bidet - that most elegant and efficient of hygienic aids - would probably make the average Soviet citizen of the period contemplate bloody revolution. But frankly, I’ve never gotten the hang of the contraption and prefer the less ritzy, but more utilitarian paper alternative.

I hope you come away with a greater appreciation of bathroom tissue, and a more enlightened grasp of the spectacular successes of American society after reading this. If not, I’m sure you can find some shells somewhere.

Should the tea party movement be seen as a phenomenon as large and consequential as another Great Awakening?

Glenn Reynolds thinks so:

I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important. The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger: America’s Third Great Awakening.

America’s prior Great Awakenings, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, were religious in nature. Unimpressed with self-serving, ossified, and often corrupt religious institutions, Americans responded with a bottom-up reassertion of faith, and independence.

This time, it’s different. It’s not America’s churches and seminaries that are in trouble: It’s America’s politicians and parties. They’ve grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the values, and the people, that they’re supposed to represent. So the people, once again, are reasserting themselves.

Mr. Reynolds is incorrect. The Great Awakenings were very much about politics - so much so that the First Great Awakening is seen as the first stirrings of what historian Page Smith refers to as an “American consciousness.” For the first time in colonial America, a clear distinction was widely sensed between the highly stratified society in England and America’s more egalitarian, less class oriented social structure. It had a profound impact on most of the Founders who saw “moral behavior” as the true value in evaluating an individual’s worth, not his class.

The importance of this political awakening cannot be underestimated. Before we could sever our ties to Mother England, the colonists had to make the leap of logic that we were a separate people deserving of our own country. The Great Awakening was not only about renewal and reform of religion and its institutions, but also the notion that the unmistakable hand of God was at work in forging a new people, a new “race,” unsullied by the infection of aristocracy and class-based social conventions.

Admittedly, Mr. Reynolds used the term “Great Awakening”more as a metaphor than a straight comparative concept to describe the tea party movement’s importance in America.

But even as a metaphor, it doesn’t hold water. The tea party movement may be more popular than the Republican party with voters (more than both parties by independents) according to this Rasmussen poll but it is hard to see how this nebulous, self-described “bottom up” political movement can translate those good feelings into the kind of massive political power that it would take to upset the establishment in either party.

This is especially true since, despite protestations to the contrary, at least some of the tea party organizational structure is being absorbed into the Republican party - as it was always intended by establishment politicians who fed the nascent movement over the last year with cash and organizational resources. The tea party embrace of Scott Brown’s candidacy in Massachusetts revealed to what lengths some in the movement had been co-opted.

Brown’s “fiscal conservatism” runs a mile wide and an inch deep, as he will shortly prove as he takes his seat in the senate. As an alternative to the clueless Coakley, he was fine. But to imbue the senator with qualities that he has never demonstrated in his political career was either the product of wishful thinking or deliberate self-delusion. Brown is plenty conservative enough - for Massachusetts. But it is at least possible that if the Democrats re-work health care reform, he might vote in favor of it. And if the Democrats jigger cap and trade, he could vote for that too. He may even be persuaded to vote for a modified card check bill.

Brown, of course, played to the sunny side of conservatives during the course of his campaign, giving tea partiers what they wanted to hear while downplaying some of his more problematic positions on the issues. That’s politics, children. This is a politician who no more wants to “shrink” the overall size of government than any other inside the beltway, establishment legislator. A rebel, he is not. An independent conservative, he is. And what he means by “independent” is that he rejects conservative litmus tests that would pigeonhole him as the kind of revanchist politician favored by many in the tea party movement.

If Brown has been elevated to hero status despite his true colors being decidedly less conservative/libertarian than some of his supporters give him credit, what about the impact the tea party movement might have on Republican politics?

Reynolds:

And the biggest action item that she presented the crowd with wasn’t to support Sarah Palin, as most politicians would have asked, but to challenge incumbents in primary races. Primary battles aren’t “civil war,” she said. They’re the kind of competition that produces strength in the end.

This seemed to resonate with what I heard from conference attendees. Over and over again, I heard from Tea Party Activists that they were planning to take over their local Republican (and, sometimes Democratic) party apparatus starting at the precinct level and shake things up.

The sense was that party politics have been run for the benefit of the party insiders and hangers-on, not for the benefit of constituents and ideals. And most of the conference, in fact, was addressed to doing something about that, not to worship of Sarah Palin, with sessions on organizing, media skills, and the like.

First of all, I doubt whether “most politicians” would have addressed the convention asking if they could be their leader - at least none with any brains. Most tea partiers have made it clear time and time again that they wish no “leader,” but rather want to remain a nebulously organized entity with ill defined goals. Most politicians would know that and, like Palin, steer clear of overtly trying to hijack the movement for their own ends.

And primary battles aren’t “civil wars” unless that is the perception advanced by the media. ‘Nuff said there. I love the civil war going on in Florida right now with a real up and coming conservative Marco Rubio taking it to the too comfortable Bush/Republican establishment. Sometimes, civil wars are good in that they clear away the deadwood and infuse new ideas, new personalities into a party.

But Florida is an open seat race and hence, a perfect battleground for this sort of thing. Not so in some other races where a GOP incumbent would be challenged by a tea party conservative. Certainly there are allowances to be made when a conservative goes against a moderate in primaries, although just as an example, I don’t think that J.D. Hayworth is the best choice to face off against John McCain.

My point is that it is lunacy to support every insurgent against every perceived RINO across the board. Like Scott Brown, some of those moderates are the best you’re going to get from the GOP in that state. Unless you think like Jim DeMint - that it would be better to “have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs…” then you have reconciled yourself not only to minority status, but also the passage of Obama’s far left agenda. The fact that Scott Brown does indeed have a set of beliefs - except they are at odds with DeMint’s narrow, parochial view of conservatism - won’t stop a lot of tea partiers from pushing for candidates who are simply too far to the right to win a statewide contest.

Yeah - but you’ll sure show them moderate RINO’s somfin, huh?

How prevalent is this attitude among the vast tea party universe? Hopefully, there are practical heads who will recognize that picking and choosing one’s fights is better than trying to nuke the party establishment because they fail some rigid, ideological benchmarks artificially imposed from outside a district or state. Questions like “How limited should government be?” will be answered differently by different conservatives across the country. Penalizing those who fail to live up to some conservatives’ ideas of a 19th century American template for “limited government” will only bring failure to the movement’s efforts.

This “Awakening” that Mr. Reynolds writes about may come about eventually. If it does, it will be the result of hard, slogging work performed by activists who eschew any kind of leadership model and rely on enthusiasm and fervent belief in their cause. It’s been done before. Look at the Democrats prior to 1968 and then view the party after McGovern’s debacle in 1972. The rioters in 1968 ended up sitting on the convention floor in 1972. And they didn’t get there because they were invited by the old-line, southern dominated Democratic party establishment.

We need more good conservatives in both parties. But is the tea party movement the right vehicle to realize that goal?