September 16, 2006
THE TERROR SPREADS:
Governing Realities: Where are the conservatives? (Jonah Goldberg, 9/15/06, National Review)
Conservative Republicans have learned a painful lesson over the last few years. It turns out power isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.Republican control of the White House and Congress hasn’t resulted in lights being turned off in Cabinet agencies or enormous garage sales of office furniture. Instead, Uncle Sam is still looking like Marlon Brando at the end of his career: bloated, sweaty, and slow moving. The GOP has become a Brando-like parody of its former self, reading its lines about cutting government without plausibility or passion.
The rub of it, from a conservative perspective, is that Republican control of the House doesn’t equal conservative control. It may not seem that way to liberals who think Joe Lieberman is right wing, but from the vantage point of the conservative movement, GOP dominance has been an enormous disappointment — good judicial appointments and tax cuts not withstanding.
The neocons and libertarians have never quite gotten a grasp on how little their concerns matter to the conservative party, which nominated and elected George W. Bush, largely over their objections, to cut taxes, move the country to the Right on moral/social issues, and implement Third Way entitlement reforms that would maintain (indeed increase) the size of government but transfer responsibility for the money government collects from bureaucrats to citizens. They're so bent on pie in the sky that they're unaware of the tectonic shifts beneath their feet, from public school vouchers to free trade to HSAs to civil service reform to the special relationship with India to retirement reform to the Faith-Based Initiative to stem cell research limits to the sunset commission to federal income tax revenues hitting their lowest level since 1950 and so on. Not all have required major congressional action and the entire agenda hasn't been enacted--SS privatization, for instance, requires more GOP senators, not fewer--but the revolution is much further along than anyone would have dreamt possible in January 2001.
Considering that Mr. Goldberg and Ramesh Ponnuru are generally the two most sensible writers at NRO, you almost have to assume that their recent essays are just attempts to stay in good favor with the gang.
MORE:
2006 is year of surpluses, social issues (Pamela M. Prah, 9/15/06, Stateline.org)
Stateline.org has compiled a state-by-state summary of legislative action in each of the 44 states that held regular sessions this year. Its review shows the overriding theme in 2006 was budget surpluses. For the first time since the 2001 nationwide economic downturn, all but 10 of the 50 states were awash in money. The welcome reprieve from budget cutting and squeezing led legislatures to approve some tax cuts, some replenishing of states’ “rainy day†accounts and some overdue investment in schools, roads and other services cut in leaner years.Alaska, Utah, Washington and Wyoming were in the enviable position of figuring out what to do with projected $1 billion surpluses.
The GOP economic boom even balanced the state budgets. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 16, 2006 10:10 AM
It also could be an example of Pundit Stockholm Syndrome, im which long-term immersion in the polticial/cultural waters of the New York-Washington media has then agreeing with their Blue State 'captors' that GOP control of Congress has been a disaster, and an polling place disaster in November is inevitable. Columns like this are a way to try and prepare yourself for what you believe is inevitable while trying to put the best face possible on it.
Posted by: John at September 16, 2006 10:45 AMYes but their colleagues have whiffed on the last four elections--thinking Newt's anti-government hysteria was a winner and that W's strong government program was a loser. Why side with them when they're on such a long losing streak?
Posted by: oj at September 16, 2006 11:00 AMTrue - as OJ pointed out recently the NRO crowd is probably pulling for a GOP disaster this fall as much if not more than the loony left.
They are smart people at NRO and elsewhere - it is dissapointing that they are so focused on big events that they don't see the ground shifting.
Posted by: AWW at September 16, 2006 3:19 PMthe "smart" is the problem.
Posted by: oj at September 16, 2006 3:28 PMIn the year or so after 9-11, I cast about looking for good publications so as to inform myself better of just what the heck was going on in the country and the world, having not really paid attention during the latter Clinton years.
I had often read NR in the 1980s, when staying at my grandparents house and although pretty young I really enjoyed the thoughtfulness, grace, humour and perspective of the writing. And, Nearer My God is a lovely book.
So, I subscribed in 2002. I don't know whether because the magazine has changed or I have or both, but after reading a few issues, I let the subscription lapse without reading another. It would be interesting to know if their subscriber numbers have dropped, or if they've been able to replace the old crowd with a newer, more strident one.
I read NRO because I want to know what the NY/Washington establishment thinks. But the quality of the posters at the Corner are so poor, it is usually painful. Podhertz (sic) and Goldberg can be funny at times, and Ponnuru is ok but the rest are horrible--bad positions and worse writers. Derbyshire is a hopeless bigot and Lopez is dumber than a bag of rocks. Well at least Dreher doesn't post there anymore.
Like the libertarians and psuedo conservatives who are in the Washington Monthly this month, the most charitable thing to say is that they think the GOP is losing so they are spinning in advance--"we really won because we lost our majority". Yes, kinda dumb but if they really believe that losing is better than winning, then they are several levels lower on the stupid scale.
Posted by: Bob at September 16, 2006 5:10 PMHistory of the development of Conservative political thought, in a nutshell:
1. Barry Goldwater brought it to its feet.
2. Ronald Reagan made it run.
3. Rush Limbaugh made it marketable.
History of development of GOP control of Congress over last 12 years, in a nutshell:
1. Newt Gingrich brought it to its feet.
2. GW Bush/Tom Delay made it run.
3. The lead role in making it marketable is undetermined, but Hugh Hewitt/Salem Communications is taking the bull by the horns.
Put these together, and NRO conservatives will eventually come to realize that control of conservatism is not their call to make.
It's a Right-of-Center country--being elected is just a function of showing up.
Posted by: oj at September 17, 2006 9:17 AMDon't know why Ponnuru and Goldberg are doing this stuff. Maybe they want to prove to Derbyshire that they can bash Bush, too. But Ponnuru despises Derbyshire (especially after that review of Party of Death) and Goldberg at least dislikes him.
Oh well, the polls are running against them, as it's starting to look like the GOP will hold both houses, and rather easily.
Posted by: Casey Abell at September 18, 2006 9:04 AMNothing could become the intellectual wing of the Right than to abandon ship again just as the W pulls off another election victory.
Posted by: oj at September 18, 2006 9:50 AM