Should my advice be solicited by any ambition young writer
seeking the quickest path to wealth and fame, I would outline a
strategy like this:
• Establish yourself early as a “promising
conservative intellectual” — Become the token
conservative columnist for your college newspaper, get into a
Republican youth leadership summer program, do an internship at
National Review or a GOP-leaning non-profit.
• Aggressively suck up to Republican
politicians — Try to land a speechwriting or “policy
advisor” gig for a senator or governor who is seen as a prospect
in the next presidential campaign.
• Once you’ve made a name for yourself, go
“rogue” — That is to say, after leaving your job as a
Republican staffer, think-tank analyst or conservative
journalist, do everything possible to sabotage GOP
prospects.
Followed carefully, this plan will land you a book deal before
you’re 30, a regular spot as a panelist on a Sunday network news
show, and a twice-weekly op-ed column in an influential
newspaper.
Important magazines will devote their covers to a 5,000-word
excerpt from your latest book, which must bear a provocative
title like, Lose One for the Gipper: How Evangelical
Extremists Hijacked the Reagan Legacy. CNN will offer you a
lucrative contract as a “conservative analyst” for their coverage
of GOP national convention, and you’ll be invited to all the
right cocktail parties in Georgetown.
In your meteoric ascent through the ranks of the punditocracy, be
sure to choose as your friends only those who are important
enough to be helpful in your career. Take care never to stake
yourself too clearly to any policy position that might be
unfashionable with the producers of “Nightline,” and avoid
directly denouncing any Democrat named Kennedy.
This way, no matter which party is in power, you’ll never be out
of work and you’ll always be invited to the White House
Correspondents Dinner because, after all, you’re so gosh-darn
influential. In short, you will be one of The
Republicans Who Really Matter.
Such prestige is never attained by anyone who is a
straight-forward, down-the-line conservative, because the
arbitrators of Republican prestige are not conservative. You’re
not going to get favorable treatment from, say, “60 Minutes” by
being a dependable voice for the grassroots GOP. Nor will any
out-and-out conservative be cited as an authoritative source in
the latest iteration of the twice-yearly Time magazine
feature on Republican Party infighting. (Sample cover blurb:
“Right-Wing Insurgency: Threat or Menace?”)
The Republicans Who Really Matter can be relied on to reinforce
liberal stereotypes of the GOP, and to pen op-ed columns offering
“helpful” advice to the Republican Party which, if followed,
would lead to certain electoral disaster.
During the Cold War, such people always counseled friendship with
the Soviet Union. They spent the 1990s alternately advocating
“moderate” gun control and defending “sensible” tax increases. No
Republican pundit is ever going to become influential by buddying
up to Wayne LaPierre or right-to-lifers; make favorable mention
of environmentalism, however, and MSNBC producers will flood your
inbox with e-mail invitations to a 10-minute guest segment on
“Hardball.”
One reliable method for advancing to the pinnacle as a Republican
commentator is to argue that the party is badly divided, and to
blame this fragmentation on some constituency universally loathed
by liberals. Relentlessly criticize “Corporate America” and Rush
Limbaugh, but never say a bad word about Olympia Snowe, nor write
anything flattering about any Republican from Mississippi.
Another tried-and-true stratagem for the conservative craving
publication on the front of the “Outlook” section of Sunday’s
Washington Post: “The Conservative Case for [Insert Pet
Liberal Cause Here].”
Fifty-two weeks a year, the editors of liberal newspapers are
seeking thoughtful Sunday commentaries making the case for why
Republicans should support late-term abortion, unrestricted
immigration, tax increases, or draconian measures to limit carbon
emissions. The ambitious young GOP pundit who plays his cards
just right can rotate his Sundays between the op-ed pages of the
New York Times, the Boston Globe, the
Chicago Tribune, and so forth.
Of course, it goes without saying that any liberal who tries to
reverse-engineer this formula will soon find himself ostracized
from polite society. Fame and fortune await the Weekly
Standard staffer who denounces fellow conservatives as
mean-spirited bigots; poverty and obscurity is the fate of the
Nation columnist who loses faith in feminism or gay
rights.
No, only GOP quislings and conservative turncoats can enhance
their social status by plunging knives into the backs of their
alleged ideological allies and partisan friends. Somewhere out
there at this very moment is the Kathleen Parker of tomorrow, the
future David Gergen biding his time while waiting for the
opportune moment to strike.
Today, our ambitious young assassin is just another political
operative, an obscure think-tank wonk. But tomorrow — or
whenever the time arrives to blame GOP woes on hateful
“extremists” — he’ll be celebrated as the newest member of that
elite crowd, The Republicans Who Really Matter.
