What is it about hard-won success that inspires petty souls to
carping criticism and hostility? Ann Coulter is the author of
seven best-selling books. Rush Limbaugh is the most successful
radio broadcaster of the modern era. And yet to hear some
Republicans tell it, Coulter and Limbaugh are an unmitigated
liability to the GOP and the conservative cause.
Since the conclusion of last month’s Conservative Political
Action Conference — where both Coulter and Limbaugh spoke to
cheering crowds — these two prominent personalities have been
singled out for attacks by some Republicans.
Scarcely had the applause ended for Limbaugh’s hour-plus speech
Feb. 28 in the Regency Ballroom of Washington’s Omni Shoreham
Hotel than
Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News pronounced the
radio talk king as having promulgated “false conservatism” that
was not founded on “bedrock truths of philosophical
conservatism.”
Apparently concerned that he might be eclipsed in Rush-bashing,
David Frum took
to the pages of Newsweek to pronounce Limbaugh “a
walking stereotype of self-indulgence,” who “cannot be allowed to
be the public face of the [Republican] enterprise.”
Coulter’s speech this year produced none of those “she said
what?” moments that had marked her 2006 and 2007 CPAC
speeches, causing conference organizers to exclude her from their
2008 schedule. Yet an improvement in Coulter’s decorum did
nothing to spare her from disparagement by Sen. John McCain’s
daughter. At Tina Brown’s site, the Daily Beast,
Meghan McCain called Coulter “offensive, radical, insulting,
and confusing…the poster woman for the most extreme side of the
Republican Party.”
Why would people identifying themselves as Republicans savage
these two popular conservative celebrities in such terms? Various
explanations have been offered, none fully satisfactory. Still
harder to fathom were those who disparaged CPAC itself as
symptomatic of conservative failure.
In a column at Pajamas Media — whose online video adjunct PJTV
sponsored “Conservatism 2.0” events during CPAC — blogger
Rick Moran wrote, “Conservatism has become loud, obnoxious,
closed-minded, and puerile,” characterized by “a vicious
parochialism that eschews debate.”
Moran’s denunciation was too much for fellow blogger Jimmie Bise,
Jr., who responded with a post titled, “A
Tale of Two CPACs,” saying: “The conservatism I saw at CPAC
was not measurably different than it was when William F. Buckley
planted his feet athwart history and shouted ‘stop.’”
Bise had a point. The overwhelming majority of those who attended
CPAC — and with more than 8,000 on hand, it was easily the
largest in the 35-year history of the conference — seemed
abundantly pleased. “Energized” was a word often heard from
attendees, and the massive television coverage for Limbaugh’s
speech that concluded the conference (carried live by Fox News,
CNN and C-SPAN) was a tremendous publicity coup.
What separated the pleasant experience of the majority, who
applauded Coulter and Limbaugh and enjoyed the conference, and
the dissatisfied misery of the critics?
Partly, it was ideological. Meghan McCain declared herself a
“progressive Republican” — whatever that means in 2009 — while
Dreher became famous for his 2006 book, Crunchy Cons,
which denounced “Western economics” as motivated chiefly by
“greed and envy.”
Envy? One could hardly blame authors like Dreher and Frum (who
has written six books) for envying the best-selling success of
Coulter. Yet for all her success and fame, Coulter’s income is
probably only a fraction of that earned by Limbaugh, who last
year
signed an eight-year contract for a reported $400 million.
It is possible to detect a common refrain that the conservatism
the critics didn’t like is “angry” or “loud,” that CPAC was
promulgating an “orthodoxy” (Dreher) or “ideological purity”
(Moran), or that “Limbaugh demands absolute deference” (Frum).
The critics, we might generalize, want a more amorphous
conservative that speaks in mild, measured tones. Older readers
will be forgiven if such criticisms sound familiar, resembling
the Eisenhower-era “modern Republicanism” — a go-along, get
along stance rejected by conservative insurgents in the 1960s,
who demanded “a choice, not an echo,” in Phyllis Schlafly’s
famous phrase.
Daunted by Democratic victories in 2006 and ‘08, and by President
Obama’s personal popularity, many of the critics doubt that the
basic conservative message can produce GOP victories in 2010 or
‘12.
There is something else, too: Hostile media coverage of CPAC
portrayed a distorted image of the event. One person involved in
staging the conference told me that, if all you knew about CPAC
was what you consumed from the mainstream media, you might be
excused for believing that Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher and
13-year
old Jonathan Krohn were the de facto leaders of
conservatism.
Republicans out of power today are no more loud and angry than
the Democrats of 2005 who, in the wake of Sen. John Kerry’s
presidential defeat, installed Howard Dean as DNC chairman and
demanded that the party fight more aggressively. However, liberal
media coverage has a way of making loud, angry Republicans seem
scarier than loud, angry Democrats.
Finally, most of the “energized” rank-and-file CPACers believed
that the basic conservative message is sound, and believed that
those like Coulter and Limbaugh who advocate the basic message
are on the right track. The critics — Frum, Dreher, Moran,
Meghan McCain and others — all want a conservatism that is
somehow different from the basic message.
Given the small-“d” democratic nature of coalition politics, the
basic-message conservative majority is in no danger of losing out
to the disgruntled minority. But the disgruntled few remain
disgruntled, spreading demoralization, despair and defeatism
where confidence and good cheer might otherwise flourish.
If they can’t be winners, they don’t want you to win either.
