Mark Tapscott at
The Copy Desk today takes on Bill Kristol's
odd paean to the oxymoron that is and always will be Big
Government Conservativism. Unlike a lot of people who were
conservatives even before Reagan was elected, I always have been
and remain a big fan of Kristol's. I think he is a good man who
overall has contributed mightily to the conservative cause. But
for the reasons very well explained by Tapscott today, Kristol is
wrong as wrong can be in his diagnosis. This is worth a whole
essay, not just a blog post, but the short response is that
Kristol, like almost every other member of the media elite,
utterly misrepresents the success of "small government
conservatism" in the few times it has been tried -- and
misrepresents, or more precisely does an evasive maneuver, when
talking about what happened to the "Gingrich Revolution" in 1995
and 1996. As I was there right in the middle of it, successfully
helping shape the public message in the winter and spring of 1995
for what turned into $50 billion of actual (not projected)
savings in just two years, this chaps me, no end.
When we actually governed as careful stewards of the public fisc,
cut domestic discretionary spending, reformed welfare, and
balanced the budget, we won. When we abandoned fiscal
conservativism, we started losing. The Medicare fight Kristol
mentions is a red herring: Yes, of course we lost the Medicare
battle in the winter of 1995 and 1996, but that is because we
muddied our message, let tactics get ahead of (and utterly
undermine) our strategy, chose the wrong ground to fight on, and
played a funeral dirge when we were supposed to be blowing a
trumpet (or, at times, when we were supposed to be playing no
music at all but merely guiding a discussion in patient tones
while doing a lot of listening).
As I said, a more extensive explanation awaits a full-length
column, but for now, let me throw in my lot with Tapscott, and
ask the often wise Mr. Kristol to reconsider.
