And Now I'm Jealous Of New Jersey

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Guy Fawkes Comes To The United States

"We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it."

We Will Remember from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

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Post-ObamacareApocalypse: The Way Forward Thursday

7:00pm: Jonah Goldberg, one of my favorite conservative columnists and a good guy with whom to share a serving of nachos at Appleby's, writes of leftist consternation at the conservative response to the passing of Obamacare:

A lot of people on the left cannot come to grips with the conservative "overreaction" to Obamacare. I don't think it's an overreaction, and I can help liberals understand what's happening. Just consider the Patriot Act. Here was a law that affected a teeny-weeny number of people. Almost all of the horrible things it did never happened. Remember all that teeth-gnashing about searched libraries? Totally bogus.

And yet, people all over the country got their dresses over their heads about the Patriot Act. Why? Well, I would argue partly out of addlepated paranoia, ignorance, and Bush hatred. They would argue it was out of deep-seated principle. Let's compromise and say that for many, it was both, and for a few, it was all about principle.

Well, opposition to PPACA seems vastly more rational to me. By its very design it affects everyone. It costs them money. It will cost them freedom. It will cost our country money, medical innovation, and mounds of debt. It involves far, far more government intrusion into our lives than the Patriot Act. And yet, many of the same people who considered the Patriot Act an American Nuremburg Law think this is one of the greatest moments in American history.

Do you get it now, progressives, why we are so up-in-arms about this little piece of legislation? It really will cost us money, time, freedom, and innovation--which means lives. This is a bad bad bill. By the time its costs are fully calculated and comprehended(the next generation of economic historians), it may well surpass Smoot Hawley.

Like I've said, the Brits declined because the cost to support their welfare state forced withdrawal around the world. This is our future if this thing stands and expands into Euro-social welfare. American decline.

BTW, you really should subscribe to Jonah's "Goldberg File." It's a real treat.

2:28pm: Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey has a post up with some great quotes and video of Charles Krauthammer, doctor-genius, and Dan Mitchell, Cato Institute, warning about the coming debate about a VAT. If you don't know what a VAT is, I recommend you click the link and read the wiki entry. A VAT might be okay if it were to take the place of existing taxes like payroll taxes, but it won't be. It will be just another revenue stream for the feds to shove big government down your throat.

Meanwhile at Reason.com (free minds and free markets!) Jacob Sullum explains why this healthcare mandate is not exactly, you know, constitutional and why a legal challenge just may be successful.

There's hope yet.

Finally (for the time being), if you are pro-life and thought there was a home for you in the Democrat party, well, sorry, you're wrong. William McGurn explains how Obamacare exposes the Democrat Party as the Party of Death (also, you'll note, the title of a book by Ramesh Ponnuru).

1:37pm BST: The Dark Lord, Karl Rove, provided a good roadmap to electoral victory in his column today. I love the fact that we conservatives love this guy while leftists think he is the devil incarnate. Don't they know? This just makes us love him all the more.

Democrats claim they've rallied their left-wing base. But that base isn't big enough to carry the fall elections, particularly after the party alienated independents and seniors. The only way Democrats win a base election this year will be if opponents of this law stay home.

To keep that from happening, Republican candidates must focus on ObamaCare's weaknesses. It will cost $2.6 trillion in its first decade of operation and is built on Madoff-style financing. For example, it double counts Social Security payroll taxes, long-term care premiums, and Medicare savings in order to make it appear more fiscally responsible. In reality, ObamaCare isn't $143 billion in the black, as Democrats have claimed, but $618 billion in the red. And giving the IRS $10 billion to hire about 16,000 agents to enforce the new taxes and fees in ObamaCare will drive small business owners crazy.

Republicans have a powerful rallying cry in "repeal, replace and reform." Few voters will want to keep onerous mandates that hit individuals and taxes that hobble economic growth. Rather than spending a trillion dollars on subsidies for insurance companies and Medicaid expansion, as ObamaCare does, Republicans should push for giving individuals the same health-insurance tax break businesses get, which would cost less.

Republicans must also continue to press for curbing junk lawsuits, enabling people to buy insurance across state lines, increasing the amount of money they can sock away tax free for medical expenses, and permitting small businesses to pool risk.

Opponents of ObamaCare have decisively won the battle for public opinion. As voters start to feel the pain of this new program, Republicans will be in a stronger position if they stay in the fight, make a principled case, and lay out a competing vision.

This is as good a place as any to point out something that frequently gets forgotten.

I'm really really tired of people talking and acting as though the left wing of the Democrat party is on par with the right wing of the Republican party.

When the country breaks down 40% conservative, 40% moderate, and 20% liberal, the left wing of the Democrat party is not only a hell of a lot smaller than the right wing of the Republican party, it is a hell of a lot further from the natural ideological center of this country.

So all you self-styled post-partisan centrist moderates, who keep trying to say, "well, they're both extremes and bad" and like to pound on conservative wingers as being as "damaging" and as far out of the mainstream as liberal wingers, you're wrong.

Did anyone (besides me) happen to watch the Obamacare debate (limited, though it was) Sunday night on CSPAN? I think Dan Henninger's characterization of the Republicans and Democrats that night is spot on:

Spring renewal and baseball's new season are upon us, so let's quote the optimism of Yogi: It isn't over until it's over. I thought 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday night in Washington was the Republican Party's finest hour in a long time. When the voting stopped, the screen said the number of Republicans voting for Mr. Obama's bill was zero. Not one. Nobody.

Pristine opposition is being spun as a Republican liability. It looks to me like a Republican resurrection. The party hasn't yet discovered what it should be, but this clearly was a party discovering what it cannot be.

Put it this way: If you produce a bill that Olympia Snowe of Maine cannot vote for, you have not produced legislation "for the generations." You have not even produced legislation that is liberal. You have produced legislation from the left. You have produced once-in-a-lifetime legislation that no Republican from any constituency across America could vote for.

Watching Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Mike Pence I was as happy with Republican leadership as I have been in a long time. Finally some backbone. Finally some principle. Finally they stood up to the Democrats and exposed them as the out-of-touch, tax and spend statists that they are. As Henninger points out, this whole debate puts liberals who aren't employed by the government in a tough spot.

Liberals in the private sector have to come to grips with the fact that what they do for a living is an abstraction to the people they are sending to Washington. Nobody at the top of the party is much interested in them anymore. House and Senate Democrats hammered insurance, pharma and medical-device makers with taxes and intimidation. It wasn't just politics. It was belief. With this bill, the party made the transition from market unionism to Alinskyism, from a politics tempered by the marketplace to one that milks the marketplace.

Count Henninger and myself among those who think "Repeal!" is a good rallying cry in the run-up to the 2010 election. First repeal the Democrats in Congress, then in 2012 the Democrat in the White House then, once he's gone, Obamacare will quickly follow him out the door.

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On Obama's 'Partisan, Condescending' State Of The Union Speech

Marc Thiessen was lead writer on President Bush's last two SOTU speeches. He offered his critique of Obama's speech at The Corner and in today's WaPo.

Listening to President Obama's speech, I could not help wondering how different this night would have been had Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's bomb not malfunctioned. Four weeks ago our country was the target of a catastrophic terrorist attack. But for the grace of God, Northwest Flight 253 would have crashed into downtown Detroit, killing thousands. Yet just a month later, it is an afterthought for this president. His only mention of the failed attack was a passing reference that he was responding with "better airline security."

Worse, the president's brief discussion of terrorism focused not on what he was doing to defend the country but was, rather, a vigorous defense of himself. His first words on the subject were a chastisement of those who would dare criticize his handling of terrorism, declaring that "all of us love this country" and warning his Republican critics to "put aside the schoolyard taunts about who is tough." It's all about him. No acknowledgement of how close we came to disaster or praise for the brave passengers who subdued the terrorist. No, only this message for his critics: If you question the wisdom of telling a captured terrorist "you have the right to remain silent," you are really questioning the president's patriotism and engaging in childish taunts.

The fact is, the American people have real concerns about Obama's approach to terrorism. They do question the wisdom of eliminating CIA interrogations, closing Guantanamo Bay, bringing the terrorists held there to this country, putting Khalid Shiekh Mohammed and his cohorts on trial in civilian courts, and giving captured terrorists Miranda rights after 50 minutes of questioning. Instead of acknowledging these concerns, Obama dismissed them. It was strange, defensive, arrogant -- and un-presidential.

I'm also bothered that Iraq & Afghanistan get such short shrift from this President. I read a lot of military blogs and try and keep on top of what's happening in those places. One of the things that comes across a lot is how frustrated members of the military are with the fact that many Americans both don't know and don't seem to care about what's happening to them wherever they are.

Part of the reason for this has got to be the complete lack of attention given to them by President Obama and the Democrat party. And this was reflected in Obama's SOTU last night.

Ps. Yes, I am also annoyed by the arrogant, lecturing tilt of his head when he speaks.

UPDATE 2:34pm GMT: If you need a palate cleanser, here's President Ronald Reagan's SOTU in 1988. (via Orin Kerr @ The Volokh Conspiracy)

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There Is An Alternative To Obamacare

Several, actually.

Republicans have done more this summer than just take pot shots at the economy-reorganizing plans coming out of Democrat controlled committees.

From the Chicago Tribune (h/t Scott L.), hardly a bastion of conservative, Republican-friendly commentary:

Over the summer and fall, Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced six -- yes, six -- health care reform proposals. You didn't hear? Well, those plans didn't produce much of a ripple because Democrats dominate the Congress.

We don't agree with everything in these bills. But the GOP proposals contain smart ideas to increase choice and competition in the health insurance market -- a powerful Republican counterpoint to the Democrats' expensive plans. The ideas include:

--Let insurers sell policies across state lines. That would loosen the strangling state-by-state regulations and unleash competition to drive premium prices down.

--Give people who buy insurance in the private market the same tax breaks as those who get it through employers. Now, employers that offer coverage get a tax break on the premiums they pay for employees. And employees don't pay taxes on the value of the coverage they receive. People who want to buy insurance in the individual market should get the same tax breaks. That would help millions of people acquire coverage.

--Expand the ability of small businesses, trade associations and other groups to set up insurance pools to offer coverage at more attractive rates.

--Control health costs in part by reining in the medical malpractice system that raises insurance premiums and forces doctors to order tests to protect themselves from lawsuits. Limiting certain kinds of damage awards would reduce spending on health care by about $11 billion in 2009, or about one-half of 1 percent, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Think about that in human terms: Reform would save millions of patients the expense and trauma of unnecessary tests and procedures.

These excellent ideas could expand coverage for the uninsured without cratering the federal budget or curbing the competition and innovation that drive the U.S. health care system. Republicans should keep pushing them -- and ruling Democrats need to give them a full and fair hearing.

Look, if leftist Democrats' real goal were to insure health care for the 5% of the US population that remains uninsured and to lower the costs for the remaining 95%, they would at least consider the Republican plans.

But it's patently not their goal.

Some of them, maybe, are open to conservative, non-socialist solutions.

A few more don't care about the relative efficiency of the system or the inherence loss of liberty in a government-run plan.

The ones who really bother me are those who want more power and more control over their fellow Americans. These are the ones to whom I frequently refer whose condescending attitude knows no bounds.

They think they know better. Yet, they willfully ignore the lessons of the failure of the command & control economies of the 20th century (USSR, &c.). For these leftists, the plan always failed because the right people weren't in control or because the plan just needed to be tweaked or given more money.

But that's the problem with these grand social plans: The right people don't exist and eventually you run out of other people's money.

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The Democrat Party: Bought & Paid For By Wall Street

I know, I know, as opposed to all the other special interests that own that party. (subscription required)

The Republicans’ loss of Wall Street magnifies an ancient fissure in the party, a conservative contradiction: the misalignment of incentives between the party’s free-enterprise wing and its entrenched business interests.

“The problem with socialism is socialism,” Willi Schlamm famously observed. “The problem with capitalism is capitalists.” From Wall Street to Detroit, businessmen have had at best a marriage of convenience with free-market principles, a fact that often puts the Republican party in the impossible position of mediating between philosophical purists and parochial business interests that profit from expansive government, protectionism, and regulations that smother competition. Republicans have long thought of themselves as the party of Big Business and free enterprise but, as Wall Street sends its money and votes to Democrats and snuggles up in an ever-cozier relationship with the government, Republicans face the choice of being the party of Big Business or the party of free enterprise — the party of capitalists or the party of capitalism.

The Democrats have already decided which party they are. Which is to say, the Democrats have figured out that they can keep Wall Street in their coalition by offering them easygoing social liberalism, a few sweet tax breaks, and good access to government revenue streams. Republicans are not above the same deal-cutting and back-scratching, obviously, but they have a knottier coalitional contradiction to resolve: The capitalists don’t want capitalism, and neither do a lot of mid-American social conservatives. Even as Reagan talked about the miracle of the invisible hand, the blue-collar social conservatives who put him in office indulged in a near-paranoid loathing of Japan — an economic phobia that is still very much alive in Republican heartland attitudes toward trade with China and India. George W. Bush talked up free trade — except on steel, sugar, and most agricultural commodities. The Republicans’ philosophy is informed by free-market idealists who celebrate the wonders of Schumpeterian “creative destruction,” but the guys flying business class would much rather sink into a nice warm bailout and let capitalism creatively destroy somebody else’s money — the taxpayers’ money, for instance. The bankers are the last guys who want free markets right now, and so it’s no surprise to find them writing big checks to the Democrats. But against all evidence, Republicans remain the party of Wall Street in the public imagination.

Obvious & easy jabs at Democrats aside, this is an interesting quandary for the Republican party.

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'A Heroic Climb': Goldberg & Steyn On The GOP

Continuing the theme from last week, here are a couple of good articles on the state of the Republican party & conservatism generally. I probably just should have referred you all to these pieces in the first part rather than rambling on myself. Oh well.

First, Jonah Goldberg:

The mainstream perception that conservatives are close-minded and dogmatic while liberals are open-minded and free-thinking has it almost exactly backward. Liberal dogma is settled: The government should do good, where it can, whenever it can. That is President Obama’s idea of pragmatism and bipartisanship: He’s open to all ideas, from either side of the aisle, about how best to expand government and get the state more involved in our lives. Meanwhile, conservatism’s dogma remains forever in flux. We constantly debate the trade-offs between freedom and virtue, the conflicts between liberty and order.

Yup. Conservatives are the dogmatic ones. But wait, there's more:

Also, partisans like to believe that whenever their guy wins, it’s because their ideas have been ratified by the American people, and whenever the other guy loses, they pronounce that the American people have resoundingly rejected this or that idea. Sometimes this is obviously true, but not nearly as often as we like to think. Obama, after all, promised over and over that his administration would provide a “net spending cut.” How’s that going?

When you repeatedly state during your campaign that you want to "cut taxes for 95% of Americans," is that really a mandate to govern as an extreme liberal?

Mark Steyn writes about everything that interests me and does so in the exact manner I would do it--if only I were as witty:

the GOP’s tent has many poles: It has social conservatives, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, national-security hawks. These groups do not always agree: The so-cons resent the libertarians’ insouciance on gay marriage and abortion. The libertarians don’t get the warhawks’ obsession with thankless nation-building in Islamist hellholes. A lot of the hawks can’t see why the fiscal cons are so hung up on footling matters like bloated government spending at a time of war. It requires a lot of effort to align these various poles sufficiently to hold up the big tent. And by the 2006 electoral cycle, between the money-no-object Congress at home and a war that seemed to have dwindled down to an endless, half-hearted, semi-colonial policing operation, the GOP poles were tilting badly. The Republican coalition is like a permanent loveless marriage: There are bad times and worse times. And, while social conservatism and libertarianism can be principled to a fault, the vagaries of electoral politics mean they often wind up being represented in office by either unprincipled opportunists like Arlen Specter or unprincipled squishes like Lincoln Chafee.

In the Democrat party....

Meanwhile, over in the other tent, they celebrate diversity with ruthless singlemindedness: In the Democrats’ parade, whatever your bugbear, government is the answer. Government is the means, government is the end, government is the whole magilla. That gives them a unity of purpose the GOP can never match.

Once the Democrats are ensconced in government glory, the infinity sided caged deathmatch of lobbying, favor giving, spoils dividing, etc., etc., takes place the & winners--as happens when the Democrat party gets its way--are chosen by the government. We've already seen some of this--ACORN payoffs in the 2010 census, the liberal grab bag that was the spendulous, er, stimulus, the Orwellianly-named "Employee Free Choice Act" (Orwellian because it aims to do exactly the opposite of what the name implies), and will continue with the cap & trade that will no doubt put money in the pockets of "green" people (not martians) who helped get Obama elected. Ditto healthcare.

One last quote from Steyn on Colin Powell:

Consider this cooing profile of Secretary Powell from Todd Purdum in the New York Times back in 2002: “Mr. Powell’s approach to almost all issues — foreign or domestic — is pragmatic and nonideological. He is internationalist, multilateralist and moderate. He has supported abortion rights and affirmative action.”

So supporting “internationalism,” “multilateralism,” abortion, and racial quotas means you’re “moderate” and “nonideological”? And anyone who feels differently is an extreme ideologue? Absolutely. The aim of a large swathe of the Left is not to win the debate but to get it canceled before it starts. You can do that in any number of ways: busting up campus appearances by conservatives, “hate speech” prohibitions, activist judges’ more imaginative court decisions, or merely, as the Times does, by declaring your side of every issue to be the “moderate” and “nonideological” position — even when, in many cases, the “extreme” position is supported by a majority of voters. Likewise, to Colin Powell, it’s Ann Coulter who’s “vicious,” not Michael Moore, who compares the jihadists who blow up Western troops in Iraq to America’s Minutemen and gets rewarded with a seat next to Jimmy Carter in the presidential box at the Democratic convention.

Steyn has got some great recommendations on the way forward..... but you're going to have to click the link & read the article to find out.

I'll give you one hint: He's a Happy Warrior; he's optimistic about our chances.

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The Marginalization Of The Republican Party & Other Poppycock

The MSM continues to spin the Specter defection & too many supposedly smart people continue to believe them.

Once again, the problem with the Republican party is not that it has become or is becoming too right-wing, too conservative, too rigid, too doctrinaire, and therefore unpalatable to most Americans. The solution to what ails Republicans is not to become more liberal.

Some interesting info from former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's latest column highlights all of this:

According to Specter and a herd of commentators - many in The Inquirer's pages - the senator's switcheroo is proof of far more than Specter's brute survival instinct; it's proof that the Republican Party is narrow and rigid.

Keep spinning. The fact is that, prior to the stimulus vote, conservative former Rep. Pat Toomey was telling supporters that the chances he would challenge Specter in the 2010 Republican primary were 50-50 at best. The Senate's most liberal Republican would have been the heavy favorite to win the nomination again.

So now we're to understand that Specter has left the small-tent GOP for the broad-minded, tolerant Democratic Party? Alas, voting records tell a different story.

According to the American Conservative Union, in 2008, only two of the 51 Senate Democrats had conservative ratings above 25 percent. But 21 of the 49 Republican senators had conservative ratings of 75 percent or less. Furthermore, 12 Democrats had a conservative rating of zero, while an additional 25 scored under 10 percent. By contrast, only one Republican scored a perfect 100, and a scant seven others scored above 90 percent. (Note that Pennsylvania's other "moderate" senator has a conservative rating of 8 percent.)

Which party has greater ideological diversity? Sorry, but the facts just don't fit the media's fantasy.

I spent 12 years in the Senate. It has one doctrinaire, narrow, intolerant caucus, and Specter just joined it.

The Democratic caucus is a reflection of the leftist special interests that control the Democrat Party. From 1994 to 2004, those interests supported liberal candidates who were too far out of the mainstream to win in competitive states and districts. They regained power in Pennsylvania and elsewhere because Democratic candidates ran as moderates or conservatives, and Republicans abandoned the principled positions that had helped them win.

The public can tell when it's being conned, so it chose to throw out the party that had lost its way. The result: the most hard-left Congress in U.S. history (see previously mentioned ratings).

(emphasis added)

Sorry, Republican-nay-sayers, the facts do not fit your narrative. Republicans did not get tossed out on their ears because they were too conservative or too rigidly right-wing. The fact that Republicans aren't the majority party is not because they supposedly became hostile to moderates & centrists.

The Republican party is far more centrist & moderate in its makeup than the Democrat party. This isn't even debatable. The Republican party is home to more diversity of opinion on all of the controversial questions that divide Americans.

For every pro-life Democrat, I'll find you two pro-choice Republicans. For every traditional marriage Democrat, I'll find you two gay marriage Republicans. For every hawkish Democrat, I'll find you two dovish Republicans. I could do this all day.

I don't point this out as a badge of honor. Sure, I like the healthy debate in the Republican party, but I wish the conservative viewpoint on any given issue would win out more consistently. I think Republicans would still be a majority party if they were more consistently conservative.

I only do this to point out that all the things of which pundits accuse Republicans & blame for their downfall--of all these things, the Democrats are guilty.

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Arlen Specter, Democrat (UPDATED)

In case anyone out there still believed that these guys (& gals) made decisions based on principle, Specter's decision to switch parties should open your eyes. As Karl Rove just got done saying on FNC, this is pure political self interest.

Or, as my brother put it, "I suppose we should always assume self-interest of all politicians, that way these moves never surprise us." He--Specter--saw the writing on the wall with regards to Pat Toomey and made the logical, self-interested decision--he went Democrat.

He did what he had to do to remain in office.

Lots of people are saying that this is evidence that there is no room in the Republican party for people with politics like Specter's. If by "politics like Specter's" you really mean Republican In Name Only, then, the Democrat party is a friendlier place for guys like him--"friendlier" in the sense that they are the party in power, not that they like your positions anymore than the Republican party.

It is not as though Specter was super sympathetic with Republicans on one of the big 3 tent poles in the Republican party--fiscal conservatism, social conservatism, hawkish on foreign affairs/national security. On all of these issues, he is almost a doctrinaire Democrat.

There's room in the Republican party for those who like 2 of 3 or even 1 of 3 (of the 3 tent poles), but if you're moderate-to-liberal on all three of those issues, yeah, the Republican party is not the place for you and good riddance.

UPDATE 5:57pm MST: My friend Dan Kim, for whom I have a lot of respect, addresses Arlen Specter's switch, what it means for the Republican party, & responds a bit to my post.

It's one thing to say that the Republican party holds no appeal to centrists--something which which I heartily disagree--and a whole other thing to say that Specter's defection is emblematic of Republican's lack of appeal to moderates.

Specter moved because Pat Toomey was going to destroy him in the Republican primary. Specter isn't a principled anything--apart from being a principled political survivalist. His quote about not letting the voters of Pennsylvania tarnish his 29 year career by voting him out clearly demonstrates the esteem (or rather, the lack thereof) he holds for the will of the voters. The arrogance manifested by this statement is right in line with what it means to be a career politician.

I didn't like him as a Republican. I like him even less as a Democrat. Arlen Specter is the definition of political opportunism--at least his defection means there is one less opportunist in the Republican party and one more in the Democrat party.


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Shelby Steele: The GOP & Minority Outreach

One of the panel discussions I attended at CPAC dealt with creating a conservative Hispanic coalition. Widely discussed were the many commonalities shared by traditional social conservatives and largely Catholic Hispanic minorities. On every issue--life, family, marriage--Hispanic minorities share the values of conservatives everywhere.

In fact, Hispanic Americans are more socially conservative than their white counterparts (that is, when you consider all white Americans together). Partnerships, at a minimum, based on these principles and shared goals seems like an obvious starting point.

But, of course, immigration raised its ugly head. I won't get into it here--it deserves its own series of posts--but I believe there is a workable solution to this problem, I'm just not entirely sure what it is.

The Conservative argument for resisting minority outreach/appeal is that we don't want to get into the grievance tribalism that afflicts the Left. We are not a party that promises a grab bag of goodies & favors if only your group helps us get elected. We are a party of principles--principles which we believe ought to appeal to people regardless of their race, gender, religion, whatever.

For the record, I believe that, 100%. One of conservatism's great promises is that it promises to view every individual the same way--it seeks the freedom of every individual.

However, within that framework, I believe there is ample room, ample opportunity, to form coalitions that seek common goals. If Hispanics are socially conservative, we can appeal to them with the principles of social conservatism. We cannot assume (wrongly, I believe) that these people somehow know that we see the world the same way they do and seek the same things they seek.

We can appeal to some of these groups without becoming tribal or abandoning our principles. We can and ought to reach out to them by using our principles and showing them how they apply in their lives and are shared by them and us.

In todays WSJ, Shelby Steele examines this question--Why the GOP can't win minorities. It is the most lucid discussion of this topic I have read in a long time. Read it all; here is an excerpt:

When redemption became a term of power, "redemptive liberalism" was born -- a new activist liberalism that gave itself a "redemptive" profile by focusing on social engineering rather than liberalism's classic focus on individual freedom. In the '60s there was no time to allow individual freedom to render up the social good. Redemptive liberalism would proactively engineer the good. Name a good like "integration," and then engineer it into being through a draconian regimen of school busing. If the busing did profound damage to public education in America, it gave liberals the right to say, "At least we did something!" In other words, we are activists

against America's old sin of segregation. Activism is moral authority in redemptive liberalism.

But conservatism sees moral authority more in a discipline of principles than in activism. It sees ideas of the good like "diversity" as mere pretext for the social engineering that always leads to unintended and oppressive consequences. Conservatism would enforce the principles that ensure individual freedom, and then allow "the good" to happen by "invisible hand."

And here is conservatism's great problem with minorities. In an era when even failed moral activism is redemptive -- and thus a source of moral authority and power -- conservatism stands flat-footed with only discipline to offer. It has only an invisible hand to compete with the activism of the left. So conservatism has no way to show itself redeemed of America's bigoted past, no way like the Great Society to engineer a grand display of its innocence, and no way to show deference to minorities for the oppression they endured. Thus it seems to be in league with that oppression.

Socially engineering society in order to assuage one's own guilt does not "redeem" the people you are trying to save (indeed, the unintended consequences of your shiny new program often worsen their condition), it is all about making yourself feel better.

Anyway, read the rest. You'll be pleased to find that Steele does not suggest some convoluted hybrid of leftist tribal politics blended with conservative principle.


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What Does $170 Million Get You? (UPDATED)

In 2005, the leftists and the media (but I repeat myself) complained about the $42.3 million price tag of President George W. Bush's 2nd inaugural. They trotted out all sorts of numbers about how much body armor that money could buy, how many children it would insure, etc., etc.

Barack Obama's inaugural will cost $170 million.

Where are the critics now? How much body armor, kiddie insurance, recession relief, whatever, would $170 million buy?

The truth is this: I don't begrudge Democrats their little self-congratulatory post inaugural parties. Live it up & enjoy it while it lasts.

All I'm asking for is a little less hypocrisy out of them and their fellow travelers in the media.


20 January 5:28pm BST: Catherine C. emailed and corrected my math. According to the article I cited, the party/parade portion of Bush's 2nd inauguration was $42.3 million & Obama's is estimated at "roughly $45 million, maybe a little bit more." No word on the security costs associated with Bush's inauguration.

OK, so the 4-1 spending difference was inaccurate, but the point remains. In 2005 the Democrats & the media (again, repeating myself) hammered on the Bush administration for the extravagance in a time of war.

4 years later, we remain at war in Iraq & Afghanistan. Add to that the current economic crisis. Things have improved (vastly) in Iraq but remained the same or gotten worse in Afghanistan. Is Obama's inauguration cost any less extravagant? Yet the tone of the media has changed. "For inaugural balls, go for glitz, forget economy."

Again, I don't begrudge the Democrats their party day. It's private money, let them spend it how they like. I'm just calling for a little more equity, a little less hypocrisy, a more evenhanded evaluation by the liberal media. That's all.


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The Big GOP Comeback: Rove's Blueprint

This is good stuff.

Evil genius, Karl Rove, laid out 7 areas of focus for Republicans:

1. Create something like James Carville's Democracy Corps--an institution designed to identify popular issues through polling and further, how to give those issues a conservative spin.

2. Train the next generation so that they can match conservative principles to the problems of today.

3. Follow the Texas model and register new Republican voters--Catholics, Hispanics, suburban & ex-urban families.

4. Create cost-effective 3rd party organizations to help elect Republicans to the House & Senate.

5. Focus on state legislative races: 2010 will bring redistricting and with it, the power for state legislatures to be game changers.

6. Revitalize conservative new media and use this medium to reach out to younger voters and others, mentioned above.

7. Strengthen the relationship between GOP policymakers and conservative policy thinkers--think tanks, scholars, academics, and others.

The GOP has the right principles to become the majority party again. What it must have are fresh, energetic voices who apply those principles to meeting the needs of American families. And it must put in place the infrastructure that will take that message and amplify it.

Like EG Karl said, we've had a few wins (Chambliss, & LA congressional races) since Obama's Big Win in November. Ever the party of eternal optimism, we are Happy Warriors.

Here's to our own Big Wins in 2010 & Romney (or Jindal or Palin) in 2012.


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Kill NPR, Please

Can someone remind me why Pravda, er, NPR is necessary? I mean, doesn't it cannibalize listeners from liberals' other left-wing radio option, Air America?

My latest NewsBusters post examines lazy NPR journalism that blames Tennessee Democrats loss of state legislature control on, you guessed it, racism.

They even found some poly sci professor to use academic speak in calling Republican voters 'poor, ignorant, religion-deluded hicks.' I'm sure he's a very nice man.


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The Future Of Conservatism, Part 24

I don't entirely agree with Rod Dreher's analysis of the election (that Sarah Palin was a net negative) or on his prescription for the way forward (that we should follow, lock-stock-barrel, David Cameron's metamorphosing of the Tory party), but I do agree with him on two important points:

1) Social/Religious conservatives were not to blame for John McCain's loss

AND

2) Kicking out the aforementioned wing of the conservative tent is not the way to win future elections.


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Michael Steele, Conference Call

Listening in on a conference call with Michael Steele on Friday. Steele is the headline candidate for the RNC chairmanship. I've been impressed with him for a long time and became even more so impressed after interviewing him at the RNC and listening to his speech there.

So far, I've been very impressed with his emphasis on the importance of how we communicate conservative ideas. Steele says, for example, that we need to be careful about saying that we want to "cut government." Government employees hear that and think, "these guys want to fire me." We need to say that we want efficient and effective government, because then those same employees will say, "the guy in the cubicle sitting next to me didn't do anything all day, he better watch out."

This is one example of the importance of communication.

Steele on communication: We are going to try every mode of communication open to us. We won't mimic the Obama campaign, but we will steal some of their communication strategies. Obama wasn't interested in communicating his VP choice, he wanted to get people's cell and email information. This kept them excited and interested and made them feel as though they were in the game.

Steele wants to actively engage bloggers to test ideas and see what things are animating people outside of Washington. Republicans don't feel a part of anything and connected to anything. That's not going to cut it. We only ask for their checks. We want them more involved than that.

Paraphrasing Steele: I want you guys involved. I want a free-flowing exchange of ideas. Those conservative bloggers can use these tools to go out and fight the good fight. This is an important opportunity for everyone who has good ideas to get involved.

[ed. note: Clearly talking about tapping into the democracy of ideas that is the internet.]


Ok, the call is done. Steele is smart--smart enough to know that he doesn't know everything. By all accounts he would be a good fundraiser, communicater, and organizer. He seems willing to listen to ideas from all sides. And, importantly, he seems to be a true conservative.

Given the social conservatism of the African-American community (see Prop 8), it's possible that Steele could reach out and begin building some bridges.


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'It's Only Democracy When Democrats Win'

Reject the notion that it's only a validation of the democratic process when Democrats win. This is the attitude of the far left and many among the liberal media elite, but it's not true.

Add this to my earlier long list of hopes: I hope the liberals can be more gracious in victory than they were in defeat in 2000 and 2004.

I call on my conservative friends to not follow the Angry Left's hysterical example following those elections.

I will probably criticize Obama every day he is President. But he will still be my President and I'll still pray for him every day.


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Morning Bell

From the Heritage Foundation's "Morning Bell," more evidence that last night's loss is not the repudiation of conservatism that many have claimed. Come on guys, give it a rest. You're conflating the Republican party with conservative ideology, among other errors in analysis.

After a hard-fought campaign nearly two years in the making, last night a candidate was elected president of the United States. That candidate promised to "cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families," expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000, and enact "a net spending cut" for the federal government. Lower taxes, a strong defense and shrinking the size of government. These are core conservative beliefs. Anyone who claims yesterday's election was the end of conservatism simply was not paying attention to the campaign.

Despite a political environment that heavily favored the party of the left, Barack Obama still managed only a 5-point margin of victory. Compare that to a true conservative, Ronald Reagan, who bested his liberal opponents by 9 points in 1980 and by 18 points in 1984. According to last night's exit polls, Americans who voted yesterday are 34% conservative, 44% moderate and only 22% liberal. As Newsweek admitted earlier this year: "Should Obama win, he will have to govern a nation that is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal."

A "sea change," this election was not. America remains a center-right country.

(thanks to Wayne B.)


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Election Night Treats

This is how we do it in London. Courtesy of my Brit flat-mate, Sebastian D.:

You'll forgive, of course, the 15 stripes and 28 stars. I'd like to see you do better.


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The Only Ad John McCain Should Run

(from Ace)

John McCain should run this version of the ad. Republicans across the country should modify it to be more general and make it the only ad they run too.


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Spirit of '94: Roll On, Republicans

Last week we wrote about the Republican protest in Congress to Nancy Pelosi's refusal to even debate off-shore and ANWR drilling. It was an impromptu affair in the House with a grand mixing of Republican congressmen and visitors to Congress. Pelosi kept the microphones, lights, & C-Span cameras off to hamper their efforts, but they pressed on.

The protest continued this week as they have gotten more and more coverage. It started with just Politico, but now, finally, the rest of the MSM are grudgingly giving them a little more press.

The following press conference is just the latest in Republicans efforts to resurrect the Spirit of '94.

Newt Gingrich is a welcome addition.




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