Jim's right. Resisting a semiviolent urge to quote Hall and
Oates, I'll add that the big question as far as I'm concerned was
thrown into fairly stark relief by Jeb Hensarling at the latest
AmSpec Newsmaker Breakfast, who more or less conceded the point
when asked whether Congressional Republicans consider the war --
whichever, whenever -- so important that an indefinite increase in
social entitlement spending is a concession worth surrendering to
Democrats. In a cruel irony, it strikes me that a large chunk of
Americans actually agree in practice with this position -- meaning
they don't want to make precipitous changes to either our foreign
or domestic policy. Yet Republicans, on this count, are in serious
danger of being painted into their own corner. Given the prevailing
wisdom, put paid by a skittish and irresponsible American
electorate, it's so easy to talk 'sacrifice' instead of 'tough
choices' that Republicans seem ready to accept an eternal fiscal
yeasaying competition with Democrats as long as they think they
hold the high ground on patriotism -- a recipe for disaster if I've
ever heard one.
About the Author
James Poulos is a doctoral student at Georgetown and the former Political Editor of Culture11. His writing has been published by The American Conservative, The National Interest, The New Atlantis, Partnership for a Secure America, and The Weekly Standard. In addition to AmSpecBlog, he has blogged at The American Scene, Doublethink, and Postmodern Conservative, which he founded. With degrees in political science and law from Duke and USC, he is currently at work on a dissertation about life after Napoleon. In his spare time he anti-blogs at Pish Tosh.
