Off the reservation.
Tales of the American right...
First, the really great thing about the firing of Bruce Bartlett from a conservative thinktank for daring to use its six-figure advance to pen an anti-Bush book isn't how it signals the great "conservative split" as the WaPo frames it. The real humour lies in the National Center for Policy Analysis' stated reason for the firing:
The statement said that the manuscript he showed Mr. Goodman was "an evaluation of the motivations and competencies of politicians rather than an analysis of public policy." The statement said the organization did not want to be associated with that kind of work.
To be fair, Goodman, Pete Du Pont & co. run a pretty wonkish, policy-oriented ship. On the other hand, there isn't an American conservative alive today who doesn't go in for identity politics at least a little. For instance, here's what du Pont wrote for Opinion Journal on the eve of the 2004 election:
A week ago John Kerry climbed into this year's equivalent of Michael Dukakis's tank--a crisply pressed, fully tailored haute couture hunting suit, capped by an Armani-looking chapeau. The visual impact was Boston-effete and no doubt the last straw for every bluejeaned, layered-jacketed and baseball-capped hunter the Kerry campaign sought to persuade.
It was the symbolic climax of the Kerry campaign. Next Tuesday--barring some substantial, unexpected event--George W. Bush is likely to be re-elected.
President Bush is not going to win because of Mr. Kerry's style or Boston blue blood, as out of sync with most Americans as they may be. He is going to win because he believes in things, while Mr. Kerry is a candidate of concern, consensus and compromise.
And here's what he wrote right after it:
Blue-collar Americans believe liberals are anti-Christian and seek to suppress all public expression of religious beliefs, including school prayer. That they are amoral--or, as Irving Kristol once said, a liberal is someone who thinks it is all right for an 18-year-old girl to perform in a porn film so long as she is paid the minimum wage.
Liberals see themselves as self appointed Robin Hoods, but they are seen by red-county Americans as taking from the productive and giving to the indolent. They look down on average Americans as misguided and too dumb to know what is good for them and their families. Since such people are unlikely to make the right decisions, a wise government must do it for them. And of course the bigger the government, the better.
Hmm, sounds a bit like an "evaluation of the motivations and competencies of politicians" to me. Nothing wrong with that; it's at least half of politics. Yet the Center didn't seem to mind maintaining its association with Du Pont.
More generally, though, Bartlett's book sounds like it fits right into the conservative canon. Here are a few of the titles that have been offered up by serious conservatives and conservative-sympathisers since Bush came to office:
Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush by David Frum (Random House)
Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters by Bill Sammon (HarperCollins)
Bush Country : How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane by John Podhoretz (St. Martin's Press)
A Matter of Character : Inside the White House of George W. Bush by Ronald Kessler (Viking)
That's not even getting into Regnery's offerings. In fact, Bartlett's book fits right into the genre: it's called The Imposter: How Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. So is the issue really that the NCPA considers itself above the fray and just doesn't want to despoil itself by contributing to the low-culture identity-politics canon (and it's worth pointing out here that they're holding an event with Dick Morris next week)? Or might it in fact, despite their protestations, be the specific identity of the identity politics at issue? A little character analysis mixed in with the peaens to supply side economics can't be such a bad thing, certainly not for sales.
In other Conservative Crack-Up news, the Carpetbagger had the best headline of the day:
Miers Nomination Now Officially Embarrassing
He refers to the LA Times, which has printed more of Miers' correspondance with, and speechifying about, Bush:
"President Bush's vision, his discipline and relentless dedication, his hard work and his likability have made it possible for all of us in this room to participate in the great enterprise we know as the United States," she told a group of White House interns in June.
"Most importantly, these qualities in President Bush make a brighter future for our nation and people all around the world possible."
"Serving President Bush and Mrs. Bush is an impossible-to-describe privilege," she told Pepperdine Law School graduates in May.
The first couple "have inspired me long before he became president," she told the interns.
"My admiration for the president's leadership and Mrs. Bush's leadership has been reaffirmed on virtually a daily basis," she told a Washington law firm in July.
"I was with him on Sept. 11th, 2001," she said in June. "The nation witnessed a resolute, determined, strong leader who swiftly responded to the challenges our country faced…. I believe I can say for all of us here, never were we so proud to be Americans, and never were we so proud of a president and first lady."
...She also spoke of how Bush hugged relatives of a soldier who had been killed in Iraq.
"This is a scene I will never forget for the selfless caring and value and sacrifice it depicted. So much of what is great about America is wrapped up in one big hug."
Good fucking God. If Bernie Kerik had been a nice person, he would have been Harriet Miers. It's getting to the point where I don't know how Democratic senators can honestly vote for her, even knowing the alternatives are a lot worse (I'll take no constitutional philosophy over an originalist one any day). But the real test is for Republican senators who risk either voting against someone who ends up being a popular, rock-ribbed conservative justice (the only thing that will matter to the base in the end, whatever they say now) or voting for someone who ends up being a squishy, status-quo moderate. Either way, if I were a GOP senator, I'd be furious at the White House for putting me in a position where I'm basically guessing. No wonder so many conservatives are off the reservation.
Ah, well. Nothing for it now but to sit back and wait for Fitzgerald to hand out the indictments.
First, the really great thing about the firing of Bruce Bartlett from a conservative thinktank for daring to use its six-figure advance to pen an anti-Bush book isn't how it signals the great "conservative split" as the WaPo frames it. The real humour lies in the National Center for Policy Analysis' stated reason for the firing:
The statement said that the manuscript he showed Mr. Goodman was "an evaluation of the motivations and competencies of politicians rather than an analysis of public policy." The statement said the organization did not want to be associated with that kind of work.
To be fair, Goodman, Pete Du Pont & co. run a pretty wonkish, policy-oriented ship. On the other hand, there isn't an American conservative alive today who doesn't go in for identity politics at least a little. For instance, here's what du Pont wrote for Opinion Journal on the eve of the 2004 election:
A week ago John Kerry climbed into this year's equivalent of Michael Dukakis's tank--a crisply pressed, fully tailored haute couture hunting suit, capped by an Armani-looking chapeau. The visual impact was Boston-effete and no doubt the last straw for every bluejeaned, layered-jacketed and baseball-capped hunter the Kerry campaign sought to persuade.
It was the symbolic climax of the Kerry campaign. Next Tuesday--barring some substantial, unexpected event--George W. Bush is likely to be re-elected.
President Bush is not going to win because of Mr. Kerry's style or Boston blue blood, as out of sync with most Americans as they may be. He is going to win because he believes in things, while Mr. Kerry is a candidate of concern, consensus and compromise.
And here's what he wrote right after it:
Blue-collar Americans believe liberals are anti-Christian and seek to suppress all public expression of religious beliefs, including school prayer. That they are amoral--or, as Irving Kristol once said, a liberal is someone who thinks it is all right for an 18-year-old girl to perform in a porn film so long as she is paid the minimum wage.
Liberals see themselves as self appointed Robin Hoods, but they are seen by red-county Americans as taking from the productive and giving to the indolent. They look down on average Americans as misguided and too dumb to know what is good for them and their families. Since such people are unlikely to make the right decisions, a wise government must do it for them. And of course the bigger the government, the better.
Hmm, sounds a bit like an "evaluation of the motivations and competencies of politicians" to me. Nothing wrong with that; it's at least half of politics. Yet the Center didn't seem to mind maintaining its association with Du Pont.
More generally, though, Bartlett's book sounds like it fits right into the conservative canon. Here are a few of the titles that have been offered up by serious conservatives and conservative-sympathisers since Bush came to office:
Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush by David Frum (Random House)
Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry, and the Bush Haters by Bill Sammon (HarperCollins)
Bush Country : How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane by John Podhoretz (St. Martin's Press)
A Matter of Character : Inside the White House of George W. Bush by Ronald Kessler (Viking)
That's not even getting into Regnery's offerings. In fact, Bartlett's book fits right into the genre: it's called The Imposter: How Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. So is the issue really that the NCPA considers itself above the fray and just doesn't want to despoil itself by contributing to the low-culture identity-politics canon (and it's worth pointing out here that they're holding an event with Dick Morris next week)? Or might it in fact, despite their protestations, be the specific identity of the identity politics at issue? A little character analysis mixed in with the peaens to supply side economics can't be such a bad thing, certainly not for sales.
In other Conservative Crack-Up news, the Carpetbagger had the best headline of the day:
Miers Nomination Now Officially Embarrassing
He refers to the LA Times, which has printed more of Miers' correspondance with, and speechifying about, Bush:
"President Bush's vision, his discipline and relentless dedication, his hard work and his likability have made it possible for all of us in this room to participate in the great enterprise we know as the United States," she told a group of White House interns in June.
"Most importantly, these qualities in President Bush make a brighter future for our nation and people all around the world possible."
"Serving President Bush and Mrs. Bush is an impossible-to-describe privilege," she told Pepperdine Law School graduates in May.
The first couple "have inspired me long before he became president," she told the interns.
"My admiration for the president's leadership and Mrs. Bush's leadership has been reaffirmed on virtually a daily basis," she told a Washington law firm in July.
"I was with him on Sept. 11th, 2001," she said in June. "The nation witnessed a resolute, determined, strong leader who swiftly responded to the challenges our country faced…. I believe I can say for all of us here, never were we so proud to be Americans, and never were we so proud of a president and first lady."
...She also spoke of how Bush hugged relatives of a soldier who had been killed in Iraq.
"This is a scene I will never forget for the selfless caring and value and sacrifice it depicted. So much of what is great about America is wrapped up in one big hug."
Good fucking God. If Bernie Kerik had been a nice person, he would have been Harriet Miers. It's getting to the point where I don't know how Democratic senators can honestly vote for her, even knowing the alternatives are a lot worse (I'll take no constitutional philosophy over an originalist one any day). But the real test is for Republican senators who risk either voting against someone who ends up being a popular, rock-ribbed conservative justice (the only thing that will matter to the base in the end, whatever they say now) or voting for someone who ends up being a squishy, status-quo moderate. Either way, if I were a GOP senator, I'd be furious at the White House for putting me in a position where I'm basically guessing. No wonder so many conservatives are off the reservation.
Ah, well. Nothing for it now but to sit back and wait for Fitzgerald to hand out the indictments.
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