Duck Theathon!

I was trying to think of what to say about the passions of the Frum, sacrificed to Conservative Shibboleths, then realized there aren't any conservative shibboleths left. Oh, maybe one new one: Don'tCriticizeTheGOP (harder to pronounce than you'd think). As Frum pointed out in the blog post that cost his job at the American Enterprise Institute (and presumably his AEI Diners Club discount card):

But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Yeah, it's uncomfortable when one of your own points this out. I guess tough love hurts. The entire episode recalls last September, when the conservative establishmen went similarly apesh*t after Frum wrote the following (that time, in a column):

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence – exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party

.

The maxim: "Do as we say we say, not as we said." All of which reminds me of that old Bugs and Daffy saw:



During the last election (and throughout the healthcare debate), I was dreaming of a day when there would be principled conservative arguments that found airtime in the public forum. Perhaps I'm wistful for something that never happened -- think Bill Buckley's challenging interview of Noam Chomsky on Firing Line. Sure, there are Ross Douthat, and Reihan Salaam, and (formlerly) Frum -- but I was waiting for the day when their distinctively marginalized ideas received a broad airing in conservative and republican circles (I mean in a New Big Tent, not the New York Times). Looks like I'll be waiting a while.

Read more of "Duck Theathon!"

The "Democrat" Party

I was reading an article in the Washington Times about the Limbaugh CPAC speech, and as loopy as it sounded, it insisted that this was THE conservative speech of the year. This was seconded by Ross Douthat over at The Atlantic -- a sober-minded conservative who happens to be young AND think the Republicans are currently jumping off a cliff.

So I decided to watch the speech in its entirety -- and I'm about halfway through now. I was wondering if it would contain anything different from his radio show (which I listen to pretty regularly. Know thy shock jock.) But it's the same mix of COMPLETELY (and knowingly) misleading statements with an occasional dash of honesty. But I'll only take one thing up -- his insistence on using The "Democrat" Party. That says everything necessary about the essential lack of seriousness among these conservatives. Leave alone whether they have substantive disagreements on policy -- many wouldn't know because they're not even willing to recognize with any honesty the positions of their liberal opponents. They're not even willing to call them by their actual name. Name calling, as we all remember from our earliest years, is a synechdoche for stupid, threatened behavior. And if you're behaving like a toddler, you'll think like a toddler, and you'll sound like one.

What ALWAYS amazes me, is that every once in a while Limbaugh will make a true statement, i.e., "Obama is spending money he doesn't have -- he's spending wealth that has yet to be created" and there's NO applause. Then "He wants to get everyone in the soup kitchen. Why? Because he doesn't want them to learn what they need in order to succeed on their own" -- followed by rabid, slavering cheers.

What's striking to me, is that at some level, I don't think any of them believe that last statement. They know he's doesn't really want people to stay ignorant and poor. But another part of them directly conflates what they see as the outcome with his own desires. Hence the childishness.

In psychology they talk about a developmental transition called "the mirror phase." In it, the child comes to recognize that those other creatures (mommy, daddy, puppy) are independent entities--they are not extensions of the kid, but creatures with distinct thoughts, feelings and desires, creatures that don't feel or think the same way. Rushlimbaughian rhetoric can only work if Republicans are able to turn that insight off. Hence the screaming scrum of toddlers. "He agrees with us, because everyone thinks the same way, because we are right. So if he says that, he must want to destroy America. And the Jonas brothers were teh awesome last night."

P.S.> I realize many Republicans felt that the Obama fanatics thronging at his campaign events were the same way -- swept to sea in a teenagery cult of personality. But CPAC isn't a bunch of fans. It's the best and brightest conservatives have to offer -- the leaders, the luminaries, the lucid. And this is what the sober conservative adores and respects.

Read more of "The "Democrat" Party"