The American Spectator

Alan Brooks| 3.2.09 @ 3:02PM

Oprah keeps gaining and losing weight-- why doesn't she just get fat and accept it? grow old gracefully and grow fat gracefully.

ruth| 3.2.09 @ 3:09PM

I agree that Republicans are in trouble because of our dearth of Conservative leaders. That's our problem and no one seems to be able to explain it. Why? What I don't understand is our side's hostility toward Rush. It's big time baloney to say that he's just an entertainer, though; liberals wouldn't hate him so much if that were true.

JP| 3.2.09 @ 3:17PM

James,
You stated your point very well. I have said the same thing many times when people accuse me of being a Limbaugh follower. I do listen to him in snippets occaisonally ; I do admit to loving his humor, analysis (usually correct), and sarcasm, and I do agree with him in general. But, I do not and have never thought of him as either a political leader nor a political intellectual. Like many, I do admire his loyalty (he showed great loyalty to President Bush even though he disagreed with him on many salient points), his political courage, and his preseverence. But, I would surely like to see some active GOP politician show the same traits -especially courage.

Since the 1994 elections the cupboard has been getting bare for the GOP. I cannot name one Republican candidate who has come up through the trenches during the last decade or so who has a)remained a steadfast conservative and b)is ready for Prime Time. The very fact that young politicians like Palin and Jindal have been thrown into the mix so quickly illustrates the paucity of conservative talent in the GOP.

ruth| 3.2.09 @ 3:17PM

Alan, why do you always focus on Oprah's fatness? LOL. Give the girl a break, it must be awful to have to haul those big buns around all of the time--with men like you noticing. Sorry, there's nothing graceful about being fat and old, which is why you'll find me outside, running my buns off every friggin' day. :)

Ben| 3.2.09 @ 3:24PM

If we as conservatives had actually had any leaders, we would not have had to vote for moderate John McCain. If there had been a "Reaganesque" leader, surely we would have voted for him. Since Rush Limbaugh clearly articulates our position (for the most part) and nobody else is saying it, he is the one that is seen as the leader - even though he has no such aspirations. Maybe Bobby Jindal is the one. Clearly this is why the Democrats tried so hard to make him look bad when he gave the Republican rebuttal to the message of the "Messiah". The fact that he was right was clearly overshaddowed by his lack of style, they said. Style is way more important than substance to those people.

Dale| 3.2.09 @ 3:53PM

Jealousy, jealousy, jealousy.
'nuff said.

--Dale

Alan Brooks| 3.2.09 @ 4:50PM

Ruth,
I'd rather be old, than be one of those dumb punks who are victims of today's K-16 edukation system.
and their dumb parents.

ruth| 3.2.09 @ 4:55PM

Age can be graceful--fat buns never!

Paul E. More| 3.2.09 @ 9:35PM

The problem for me with Rush as a “conservative” leader is that from an intellectual and philosophical point of view, Rush isn’t a conservative. I take my definition of conservatism from Russell Kirk, James Burnham, Robert Nisbet and Irving Babbitt. I don’t think Rush has ever read a book by any of these seminal conservative thinkers let alone studied the philosophy and history of conservatism as an intellectual movement as much as I have, and it isn’t even my job to do so.

Rush is more or less a “conservative” only in a post-1965 sense when the old liberals were dumped over in favor of the New Left. I mean that Rush agrees in a philosophical sense with many aspects of liberalism pre-1965. If Rush read Kirk or Burnham or Nisbet he would think they were “liberals” or “left wingers” because of their concern with local community, with restricting presidential power, with their opposition to what they called “democratic imperialism”, a phrase Babbitt coined in opposition to Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy.

Limbaugh simply isn’t a serious enough thinker to be a leader of a political movement, even though contemporary “liberals” (i.e., leftists) give Rush plenty of material to make fun of every week. Frankly, for that job, for Rush it is like shooting ducks in a barrel, it is really too easy. But that kind of thing isn’t going to change anything because the Left controls the Mainstream Media which is what (along with public education) controls what the vast majority of the population thinks. To put it in Marxist terms, the Left controls the “means of production of public opinion” and can thus mold what passes for “reality” for most people. And Rush can’t compete with that, not on behalf of a movement, although he can stay very lucratively employed off the circumstances that currently exist.

Smokin'| 3.2.09 @ 11:27PM

Paul, I love ya, but dude, you're dry as dust. Doesn't that Ivory Tower ever feel a bit confining? Charisma matters, Reagan had lots of it, and it brought many people to our side. Rush ain't perfect and neither are we. But I believe he is good, and I trust him. I just want to enjoy tonight, damn it's been depressing.

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 12:00AM

Hey, I’m not suggesting that Rush cite the authors on the radio. But Rush endorsed the Neocon disaster in Iraq, unending mass immigration and “free trade” that no other country in the world practices, either because he doesn’t understand the issues and hasn’t done a study of real conservative principles or he doesn’t care.

The irony is that Rush has carried water for Neocon (i.e., pre-1965 liberal hacks) for years and years, and now the Neocons are putting the knife in Rush’s back.

A populist conservative radio personality could have fun with the illegal and mass “legal” immigration invasion, pushing all kinds of populist and Politically Incorrect buttons. A populist conservative could humiliate the economic traitors who lobby for the interests of foreign governments and companies. A conservative populist could “feel the pain” of working class and rural salt of the earth types whose lives have been sacrificed in wars that have nothing to do with American national interests.

A populist conservative radio host could have lots of fun taking on the Transgender, Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian lobby or Hollyweird or the insane PC antics to be found in universities across the land.

But the dirty little secret of Rush is that he cares a great deal about what the Left thinks, as one can see from what he told the New York Times hack who interviewed him recently. Rush took a shot at O’Reilly and was snide about Hannity. Hell, a populist conservative might have told the New York Times where it could go instead of seeking its favor.

Rush isn’t a conservative by any definition and those who think he is don’t know what they are talking about.

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 12:05AM

I don't know what is worse; the elitist Left looking down their collective noses at me or the elitist, condescending Conservatives individually ignoring me.

That reminds me; I need to get my blue blazer from the cleaners tomorrow. I have to look good for the polo matches on Saturday. No Two-Buck-Chuck for this prima donna.

Yes, the last paragraph was complete sarcasm.

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 12:39AM

@ Paul E. More

If you want to make a case against Limbaugh, may I suggest you have some facts on your side and a lot less hyperbole to present your case.

Limbaugh NEVER, EVER endorsed unending mass immigration. If that were the case, he would have endorsed McCain in the primaries.
Please stop all the "neo-con" nonsense. I find most folks prefer that term because they hesitate to use the word, Jews. Most of them were dyed-in-the-wool libs before 1985.
Then again, would you prefer a status quo in Iraq where Saddam is still in charge of an increasingly fragile nation?
If you are going to argue Iraq have an idea what was right and what went wrong. You would be better off if you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

As to free trade, I take it you prefer the mercantile system. We can then start wars when folks don't pay their debts.
Free trade opens up markets to US goods that would otherwise be closed to Americans. I suggest you refer to the effects of Smoot-Hawley on this country and the world economy. Free trade only works when applied fairly.
While you are tossing about book recommendations, may I suggest Adam Smith's works, The Wealth Of Nations and The Theory Of Moral Sentiments. They may change your mind concerning the viability of mercantilism. I understand Dr. Smith was a decent economist. I prefer Hayek.

Oddly, most of your post seems to describe Michael Savage. You can have him, he isn't my cup of tea.
Is there anything else you would care to add?

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 12:46AM

Talk about the degradation of the democratic dogma, some of you guys give the phrase lowest common denominator a bad name.

If you can’t follow an intellectual argument about politics and political philosophy that is only a few paragraphs long without getting a headache, then I wonder how you manage to function at all.

If it is really all that difficult, then I suggest that you stick to watching John Stewart Leibowitz’s TV show and just think the opposite of what he claims to believe.

BTW, that is another problem with Rush, he seems to think that what the Left claims to believe is what it really believes, and that the rest of us should just do the opposite of what the Left claims it is doing or intends to do.

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 1:03AM

Well Basil, check out David Frum’s attack on Rush today. Maybe even you will have your fill with Neocons some day but invincible ignorance is mostly incurable.

Yes, Virginia, there are Neocons, and before their policies lead to the disasters of Iraq and open borders and free trade, they were proud to call themselves Neocons. Look up their books, some with the title “Neoconservative” in them (e.g., A Neoconservative Reader etc).

Rush stated at CPAC that we want to take in all the immigrants as long as it is legal. That is unending mass immigration. But keep your lies if you want them. If Rush was a leader against amnesty I’m a Martian.

The war in Iraq had nothing to do with American national interests. Russell Kirk was against the first Iraq war and was correct that attempts to export by military force “democracy” were not only foolish but left wing.

Russell Kirk also denounced what he called “Manchester economics”, that is the Adam Smith and Hayekian ideology you invoke. Neither Smith nor Hayek were conservatives, and Hayek wrote a famous essay entitled “Why I am not a conservative.” At least Hayek had a policy of honesty in labels, something Basil the ignorant Neocon isn’t smart enough to figure out.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 1:15AM

Man, I've got no fight left in me tonight to argue with anyone else. Okay, Paul, I think we should just kill ourselves. Hell, there's no point anyway, right? I think I'm going to knock back some shots. God almighty.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 1:18AM

You must be fun to party with, Paul. Party animal.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 1:20AM

Leave Basil alone and stop the damned labeling. He's a fine man and I consider him a friend.

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 1:39AM

Boy, you guys really like to gang up on anyone on to your right that doesn’t drink the kool-aid.

What is going on now is liberalism is dying a difficult death and all of us who don’t agree with liberalism are suffering because of it. In place of liberalism (aka, Neoconism), we now have a hard Leftism in power. The only way to defeat it is to turn to the real right, which gives us the philosophical understanding to advance positions that will appeal to decent people of good will. The real right understands the need for community, a place where people are supported, in addition to “society”, an arena of competition. The real right also understands the need to defend a particular nation or people and a particular place, a country and its land and traditions. This actually also appeals to lots of folks who don’t think of themselves as “conservatives” but will like conservative policies.

BTW, “free trade” in America was adopted by FDR and supported by Truman, JFK, LBJ and Clinton. The South also liked “free trade” dating back to its slavery days, and the South supported FDR in this policy.

The following major trading partners who practice “protectionism” currently include: Canada; Mexico; Japan; South Korea; UK and European Union. Not sure if China uses a tax policy to protect its market, but they do use currency manipulation to do so.

Only a fool believes in the “free lunch” of “free trade.”

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 2:07AM

Paul, no one is ganging up on you--we 're just trying to lighten things up a bit. Everyone is worried as hell. I'll never be your enemy, I'll never turn on you--you are my family. And like all families sometimes we mix it up. I understand that you are a purist, probably too smart for your own good; but didn't your mom ever tell you to give a little, to compromise? No one gets everything they want, not on this earth anyway. Only a fool would think that, right? I hope we're still friends.

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 2:57AM

@ Paul E. More
Where do I begin?

You said--Rush stated at CPAC that we want to take in all the immigrants as long as it is legal. That is unending mass immigration.

Umm, that is a correct premise but you come to the incorrect conclusion. No one has a problem with legal immigration (well, maybe you do). What people are upset about is illegal immigration. I have a couple of friends in AZ and NM, who constantly have intruders crossing their property. (no lawsuits yet)
Rush opposed amnesty; as do I and others on this board. Therefore, get your facts/premises/conclusions correct before you start pontificating on this subject.

For the record, would you want Saddam to remain in power? I read your responses a couple of times but you did not answer my question. A simple yes or no answer will suffice.
I guess you are of the premise that nothing in the Middle East is of concern to American national interests. That is either naive or disingenuous. It is also a dangerous proposition. If/when Iran get nukes is of no concern to America?

Have you looked at a map of the world? Do you realize where most of the world's exported oil comes from? Do you even know what the term hegemony means?

It is fools like you that cause wars. When they begin, you will cite Kirk as a reason not to fight them. Your logical gymnastics may earn you a high score in your universe but in the real world they put our young men and women in harm's way. Perhaps you need to read some books by John Bolton. Oh wait, is he a neo-con? I don't know, is Bolton Jewish?

American foriegn policy is not some punch line or an idea to be taken lightly. The reality is there are bad people out in the world who despise Freedom, Liberty, and America. They are not our friends and they respect folks like you even less because they know that you would trade peace for their chains. That isn't the Kool-aid, that is reality.
Perhaps you need an education in the three terms for Peace in Arabic; salaam, hudna, and suhl.

I will leave the debate on Free Trade for another time.
To quote Harvard economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw, "Few propositions command as much consensus among professional economists as that open world trade increases economic growth and raises living standards."
I would only state that the only folks I know who are against Free Trade are Socialists and those folks who believe it will bring about the one-world conspiracy. Which camp are you in?

Oh, and since I have shown that Limbaugh was a leader in the fight against Illegal Immigration, I guess that makes you related to E=McSquared; and just as bright.

I would suggest you get yourself one of those disintegrating guns and a dog named K-nine.

...... and try much harder next time.

BTW, if you mess with Ruth again, I will have to invoke clause 13 of my Mutual Defense Treaty with Ruth.

K~Bob| 3.3.09 @ 3:09AM

"The problem for me with Rush as a 'conservative' leader is that from an intellectual and philosophical point of view, Rush isn’t a conservative. I take my definition of conservatism from Russell Kirk, James Burnham, Robert Nisbet and Irving Babbitt."

Congratulations. I take my definition of Liberalism from Herbert Spencer. Let's all stay frozen in time, and ignore the changes brought about by those with greater followings than ourselves.

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 5:02AM

Rush Gave a Bad Speech

http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/2009/03/02/rush-gave-a-bad-speech/

John Mark Reynolds

I listened to the Rush speech at CPAC. You can here, but it is mostly a waste of time.
It was a bad speech, as a speech, and it made an argument that in our present societal context sounds like a spirited defense of the White Star Line on April 16, 1912.

Let’s be blunt: Democrats wish Rush to be the face of the Republican Party, because he is not good at television or public orations. After all, Rush tried television and failed.
Republicans lost young adults this election. Rush is not the right guy to get them back

Rush is bad at “uplift” in his speeches. He sounds angry when he means to be positive. That is bad in the college age demographic.
Third, Rush has too little sense of irony. His bluster may be ironic, but a good many people miss the joke. See Shatner, William for someone who knows how to do it better . . . but even then who wouldn’t be delighted on the right if Bill Shatner, entertainer, become the image of the Democratic Party?
Rush is a great, great entertainer. He is the best at a certain kind of talk radio ever, but he is a shallow thinker who often fails to practice what he preaches.
As such he is a bad public face for the conservative movement.
Does anyone remember the visuals of Tip O’Neil behind Reagan? Rush is our visual Tip O’Neil

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 5:16AM

Basil:

You need to read a book, a good one instead of listening to the radio or reading web sites.

Yes, I think a book written within the last 50 years is still valid regarding what a conservative is and what a conservative isn’t. Hell, the Constitution is over 200 years old and we pretend to still follow it, or at least some of us do.

I would say that mass immigration is still mass immigration, even if it is “legal.” We should limit immigration so that it does not affect population growth and threaten to fundamentally change the culture, character and political and economic stability of the USA. The left is for open borders for a reason, they know it will destroy the historic culture and way of life in America. This is also why Neocons favor it.

Iraq was not a threat to the USA and only a fool or a liar would claim that it was. We cannot solve the problems in the Middle East via war, and anyone who thinks we can is a lunatic.

Douglas MacArthur warned against fighting a land war in Asia. The Middle East is in Asia. President Ronald Reagan said the USA would never start a war, but it appears that is what happened with Iraq in 2003. I’m sure Reagan would not have supported that war, and I know, because I saw it on TV from the horses mouth, that William Buckley changed his mind and stated that he was wrong to support the Iraq war and that the Neocons were filled with hubris.

Basil, if you don’t know what hubris is, look it up in a dictionary.

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 11:44AM

@ Paul E. More

You are in need of an intervention. Do you understand the concept of LEGAL immigration?
Are you a member of the Know Nothing Party?
To refresh your memory, that was a political party in the 19th century who focused solely on keeping immigrants out of the US. They were anti-Catholics and anti-Jews.
You stance on this subject is quite troubling.

As to Iraq, I see you have the Anti-war crowd's talking points down pat. Do you have idea what the State of Iraq was under Saddam?
I suppose you still think the Kumbaya approach would have worked. Neville Chamberlain still lives to this day. Perhaps, you read his book also?

You quote MacArthur? Can you provide the actual quote by MacArthur and its context?
I will save you the trouble, you can't because it is a myth. The quote came the the movie The Princess Bride.
Oh and BTW, Korea is in Asia. Look at a world map if you don't believe me.

I asked you to try harder and you quote a movie?
You tell me to read a book? You are too priceless.

Now I will give some advice; Your rear end was meant to sit on not to think with. If you want to remain a member of the Know Nothing Party continue with your inane posts. I will let you have the last word ...... Martian.

Oh and for the record, I disdain war. Anyone who has fought one knows it sucks. However, a realist understands that if you take that option off the table, idiots will reign.

Ronnie| 3.3.09 @ 11:59AM

You people want to make conservatisim hard. Ask yourself these questions.....

Do you believe in individual rights or the collective?

Do you believe the government should control every aspect of your life yes or no? (although with the tax system it already does).

Do you believe in free speech?(the democrats are trying to take it away)

Do you believe in states rights or central planning?

Do you believe in gun rights ?(yes even simi automatic weapons, because if the day comes when your rights are gone and you have no option left....a .22 ain't gonna get it)

Do you believe that this nation was founded on biblical principals...and they are good and right?Even if you are an athiest do you believe in my right to worship God?

Do you believe in :"I don't care what you do behind closed doors that's your business, but marriage is between one man and one woman."

Do you believe that giving care to a cat that a kid put in a homemade bong to "relax"him and gets taken to the vet to get checked out is ok but killing a fetus is ok too?

So in conclusion you either are conservative or you are a liberal there is no inbetween in my book.

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 12:20PM

@ Ronnie

Rephrase that first question to include Freedom and Liberty. That is paramount. A Conservative strongly believes in those concepts. The Left believes those commodities can be bargained and taken away.

@ Paul E More

It would be wise to find out who John Mark Reynolds is before you post his screed. When a religious figure sticks his toes in the political waters, you never know why he does so. Of course, I never heard of him until your post either.
But it was meant to buttress your shrinking point that Rush is no conservative ....... carry on Martian.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 2:23PM

I'm with you, Ronnie. Conservatism isn't a tough concept, kind of like breathing; I just know it's a fit. It's about freedom, but to be truly free you have to be moral. The rest are just details. It might be more difficult to live by this paradigm, but for me, it's the only way.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 3:15PM

Paul, I'm upset and worried about my country, but I refuse to give in to your dark vision of life. There has to be hope, despair is not an option; I will not turn my face away from my God. I know our present situation is dire and I understand where you're coming from, but you're so rigid, so stark that I have turn away to protect myself. But I still like you. There has to be something to believe in, an ideal worth the fight, right?

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 3:45PM

@ ruth

That is an exceptional post written by an exceptional person. Never lose your Faith or your optimism. The world would be much better if we all shared your wisdom and vision.
God Bless You

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 4:02PM

You're a sweetheart, Basil. Thank you. Blessings back at you.

Ronnie| 3.3.09 @ 4:47PM

Thanks guys ....I just don't see any minutia in conservatisim. It's black and white. Some friends of mine and I started a website :

http://www.reliableconservatives.com/

It's really small but you might enjoy it.

Another is Glenn Beck's We surrond them:

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/21018/

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 5:17PM

JOHN DERYSHIRE, OF NATIONAL REVIEW, ON THE LOWBROW RADIO TALKERS

With those reasons for gratitude duly noted, are there some downsides to conservative talk radio? Taking the conservative project as a whole — limited government, fiscal prudence, equality under law, personal liberty, patriotism, realism abroad — has talk radio helped or hurt? All those good things are plainly off the table for the next four years at least, a prospect that conservatives can only view with anguish. Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs?
They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly. The big names, too, were all uncritical of the decade-long (at least) efforts to "build democracy" in no-account nations with politically primitive populations. Sean Hannity called the Iraq War a "massive success," and in January 2008 deemed the U.S. economy "phenomenal."
Much as their blind loyalty discredited the Right, perhaps the worst effect of Limbaugh et al. has been their draining away of political energy from what might have been a much more worthwhile project: the fostering of a middlebrow conservatism. There is nothing wrong with lowbrow conservatism. It's energizing and fun. What's wrong is the impression fixed in the minds of too many Americans that conservatism is always lowbrow, an impression our enemies gleefully reinforce when the opportunity arises. Thus a liberal like E.J. Dionne can say, "The cause of Edmund Burke, Leo Strauss, Robert Nisbet and William F. Buckley Jr. is now in the hands of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity … Reason has been overwhelmed by propaganda, ideas by slogans." Talk radio has contributed mightily to this development.
It does so by routinely descending into the ad hominem — Feminazis instead of feminism — and catering to reflex rather than thought. Where once conservatism had been about individualism, talk-radio now rallies the mob. "Revolt against the masses?" asked Jeffrey Hart. "Limbaugh is the masses."
In place of the permanent things, we have Happy-Meal conservatism: cheap, childish, familiar. Gone are the internal tensions, the thought-provoking paradoxes, the ideological uneasiness that marked the early Right. However much this dumbing down has damaged the conservative brand, it appeals to millions of Americans. McDonald's profits rose 80 percent last year.
There is a lowbrow liberalism too, but the Left hasn't learned how to market it. Consider again the failure of liberals at the talk-radio format, with the bankruptcy of Air America always put forward as an example. Yet in fact liberals are very successful at talk radio. They are just no good at the lowbrow sort. The "Rush Limbaugh Show" may be first in those current Talkers magazine rankings, but second and third are National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," with 13 million weekly listeners each. It is easy to mock the studied gentility, affectless voices, and reflexive liberalism of NPR, but these are very successful radio programs.
Liberals are getting rather good at talk TV, too. The key to this medium, they have discovered, is irony. I don't take this political stuff seriously, I assure you, but really, these damn fool Republicans … Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert offer different styles of irony, but none leaves any shadow of doubt where his political sympathies lie. Liberals have done well to master this trick, but it depends too much on facial expressions and body language — the double-take, the arched eyebrow, the knowing smirk — to transfer to radio. It is, in any case, not quite populism, the target audience being mainly the ironic cohort — college-educated Stuff White People Like types.

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 5:18PM

JOHN DERYSHIRE, OF NATIONAL REVIEW, ON THE LOWBROW RADIO TALKERS, CONTINUED….

And if liberals can't do populism, the converse is also true: conservatives are not much good at gentility. We don't do affectless voices, it seems. There are genteel conservative events — I've been to about a million of them, and have the NoDoz pharmacy receipts to prove it — but they preach to the converted. If anything, they reinforce the ghettoization of conservatism, of which talk radio's echo chamber is the major symptom. We don't know how to speak to that vast segment of the American middle class that lives sensibly — indeed, conservatively — wishes to be thought generous and good, finds everyday politics boring, and has a horror of strong opinions. This untapped constituency might be receptive to interesting radio programs with a conservative slant.
Even better than NPR as a listening experience is the BBC's Radio 4. One of the few things I used to look forward to on my occasional visits to the mother country was Radio 4, which almost always had something interesting to say on the 90-minute drive from Heathrow to my hometown. One current feature is "America, Empire of Liberty," a thumbnail history of the U.S. for British listeners. The show's viewpoint is entirely conventional but pitched just right for a middlebrow radio audience. Why can't conservatives do radio like that? Instead we have crude cheerleading for world-saving Wilsonianism, social utopianism, and a cloth-eared, moon-booted Republican administration.
You might object that the Right didn't need talk radio to ruin it; it was quite capable of ruining itself. At sea for a uniting cause once the Soviet Union had fallen, buffaloed by master gamers in Congress, outfoxed by Bill Clinton, then seduced by the vapid "compassionate conservatism" of Rove and Bush, the post-Cold War Right cheerfully dug its own grave. And there was some valiant resistance from conservative talk radio to Bush's crazier initiatives, like "comprehensive immigration reform" and the Medicare prescription-drugs extravaganza.
But there was not much confrontation with other deep social and economic problems. The unholy marriage of social engineering and high finance that ended with our present ruin was left largely unanalyzed from reluctance to slight a Republican administration. Plenty of people saw what was coming. There was Ron Paul, for example: "Our present course … is not sustainable. … Our spendthrift ways are going to come to an end one way or another. Politicians won't even mention the issue, much less face up to it."
Neither will the GOP cheerleaders of conservative talk radio. And Ron Paul, you know, has a cousin whose best friend's daughter was once dog-walker for a member of the John Birch Society. So much for him!
Why engage an opponent when an epithet is in easy reach? Some are crude: rather than debating Jimmy Carter's views on Mideast peace, Michael Savage dismisses him as a "war criminal." Others are juvenile: Mark Levin blasts the Washington Compost and New York Slimes.
But for all the bullying bluster of conservative talk-show hosts, their essential attitude is one of apology and submission — the dreary old conservative cringe. Their underlying metaphysic is the same as the liberals': infinite human potential — Yes, we can! — if only we get society right. To the Left, getting society right involves shoveling us around like truckloads of concrete; to the Right, it means banging on about responsibility, God, and tax cuts while deficits balloon, Congress extrudes yet another social-engineering fiasco, and our armies guard the Fulda Gap. That human beings have limitations and that wise social policy ought to accept the fact — some problems insoluble, some Children Left Behind — is as unsayable on "Hannity" as it is on "All Things Considered."
I enjoy these radio bloviators (and their TV equivalents) and hope they can survive the coming assault from Left triumphalists. If conservatism is to have a future, though, it will need to listen to more than the looped tape of lowbrow talk radio. We could even tackle the matter of tone, bringing a sportsman's respect for his opponents to the debate.
I repeat: There is nothing wrong with lowbrow conservatism. Ideas must be marketed, and right-wing talk radio captures a big and useful market segment. However, if there is no thoughtful, rigorous presentation of conservative ideas, then conservatism by default becomes the raucous parochialism of Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, and company. That loses us a market segment at least as useful, if perhaps not as big.
Conservatives have never had, and never should have, a problem with elitism. Why have we allowed carny barkers to run away with the Right?

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 5:32PM

You're wrong, Paul. The culprit is not Rush or Sean, it's the ordinary Conservative. I submit to you that it's our own individual moral degradation that has caused the rot. Liberals are even worse. (I can't stand Savage)

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 5:34PM

Basil: I’m beginning to think you are a troll. After all, could you really be so ignorant to think that the quote from MacArthur was FROM the movie the Princess Bride, and was not USED in that movie? I refuse to believe that anyone would allow himself to be exposed as such an ignoramus but conclude instead that Basil is just a troll trying to destroy the message of conservative American Spectator readers. So Basil isn’t really an ignoramus, he just pretends to be one on the internet.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0217/p09s01-coop.html

A reality check for Obama in Afghanistan
He's facing pressure to increase US troop levels there. Has Washington learned nothing from the Soviet experience?
By Walter Rodgers
from the February 17, 2009 edition

OAKTON, VA. - History may not repeat itself, but all too often it recycles mistakes. In 1961, before the Vietnam War became full-fledged, former Gen. Douglas MacArthur warned President Kennedy not to fight a land war in Asia. Over the next 14 years, more than 58,000 Americans died as Washington ignored his advice and ramped up operations.
Today, the US is stuck in another land war in Asia: Afghanistan. The original mission was to capture Osama bin Laden, disable Al Qaeda, remove the Taliban, and keep the country from being a safe haven for terrorists. After seven years of fighting, hundreds of dead US soldiers and thousands more wounded, those objectives have not been met.
And now the US wants to double down, adding as many as 30,000 additional US troops there to get the job done.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 5:44PM

He's not a troll, Paul. He's stalwart. You're both on the same side.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 5:58PM

I wish you would train your considerable intellectual firepower on liberals. Do you ever? I'd pay to watch. :)

ronnie| 3.3.09 @ 6:01PM

Again see my post above...conservatisim is not hard. There is no room minutia in conservatisim...we leave the big "grey areas" to the RINO's and liberals. Like Rush said what part of Obambas policy do you want to work?!!
If he succeeds we will be a socialist nation or worse. If he fails hopefully we get rid of RINO's and conservatives win.

It really is that simple.

Conservatives believe in concrete tried and true things not milk toast wishy washy policy. I call myself a conservative not a republican..why? A republican has no spine. Conservatives would be Jim Demint or Tom Coburn....Republicans would be John McCain or Arlen Spector.

Paul E. More| 3.3.09 @ 6:18PM

My father served under Gen. MacArthur in the pacific. One of my uncles was tortured to death by the Japs in a POW camp. Another one was awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for heroic action during the invasion of Europe. I was named after him.
Now, I don’t really take after him or my other citizen solider ancestors. There is even a historical site for a place where several of my ancestors died in the War of Independence.
So I think my ancestral record of fighting for our country is fairly good, better than just about any Neocon one could find.

And I am attacking liberals when I explode crazy liberal Neocon “ideas”, such as wars to impose democracy. Or open borders, unending mass “legal” immigration. Yes, we can have some legal immigration, but not MASS immigration. Free trade is another liberal idea, pushed by liberals to this day. Until we stop adopting liberal ideas as conservative ones, we aren’t going to get anywhere.

My view of what we need to return to is something like a Jimmy Stewart/Frank Capra movie, to put it in popular terms. A place with strong local communities would render government programs obsolete. We can rebuild such a society if we reduce the size of government and we can do that by rebuilding a local, regional and national economy and gradually opting out of the “global” economy, which looks like the Titanic at this point anyway.

Basil Plumley| 3.3.09 @ 6:26PM

@ Paul E. More aka The Martian

Oddly, the myth does not die. It gets cited and rehashed as fact yet no one can substantiate the quote. I asked you to prove the quote occurred and you cite a recent magazine article that uses the quote.

Good Lord, you are OBTUSE!!

It's rather simple, prove that the quote was made by MacArthur. There must be articles, witnesses, op-eds from 1961 to bolster your premise. Seriously, it should not be difficult for you to find it in one of those old books of yours.

Heck, I would even ask you to try to find it in the anti-war literature of the time. Good luck in your search. Amazingly, no one else has found proof that MacArthur said this to anyone. You would be famous if you ever found said evidence.

Wasn't it Goebbels who once said, "repeat a lie often enough and it will become the truth"?
Take the challenge and find the evidence-I dare you. You can apologize to me when you finally give up.

Until then, you will remain My Favorite Martian

@ ruth
I also dislike Savage.

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 6:39PM

You're preaching to the choir, Paul. Got any solutions? What a lineage! I knew you were a thoroughbred the first time I read one of your posts. You scared the hell out of me. It was about true Conservatism, right? Or maybe it was the one where you laid out the grim (horrific) details of our future on our present course. It gave me nightmares. The men in your family go to West Point or another Military Academy? I think a lot of the men who post here are graduates of West Point, etc. You guys are friggin' smart, you give me hope all is not lost. Your leadership is needed more than ever, you know? Patrioism isn't just on the battlefield, it's right here, right now! Sorry, it's not enough to attack your own in order to fulfill your Conservative duty of vanquishing liberals. Picking on me is like shooting fish in a barrel, what's the sport in that?

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 6:51PM

I think both of you men are aces. I'm a sucker for a strong guy who has the courage to fight for what is right. I look around at so many scuzzy men and I'm so disillusioned. Women are scuzzy, too, I know. That's even worse. Jefferson said, 'The people get the government they deserve'. So true, and it breaks my heart to say it. I have to go get my son--football practice. Every day I try to teach him to do the right thing, protect the weaker and to love God, family and country. I hope and pray he takes my words to heart, that he grows up to be a good man. Probably just like the mothers of you two gentlemen. ;)

ronnie| 3.3.09 @ 7:08PM

again it's simple...you want soloutions:

Here is the soloution watch the video on Jim Demints homepage:

http://demint.senate.gov/public/

ruth| 3.3.09 @ 8:00PM

I think we're all correct. Now if we could just figure out a way to save our country.

Paul E. More| 3.4.09 @ 3:12AM

None of my ancestors attended military schools, they were just citizen soldiers. All of the heroes volunteered. Some of them were part time politicians back in the colonial to independence times, otherwise small businessmen and farmers. I didn’t even know about some of the history until the internet came along, and then one of my cousins did the research on it. Some of the material was already on deposit at the New York Public Library. I don’t take after the heroes, I take after the intellectual side of the family tree.

PRACTIAL SUGGESTION: Reduce immigration to the limit that we had before 1990, which was 500,000 per year. You will notice that the worst states with regard to home values and foreclosures are also states with among the highest levels of immigration. Reducing immigration will reduce the number of poor people imported and it will reduce the number of Democrat voters imported. It will also open more jobs to citizens, reducing the call for more government intervention in the economy.

http://reason.com/blog/show/131890.html

Eighty Seven Percent of Housing Value Loss* in Just Four States
Ronald Bailey | February 26, 2009, 10:42am
President Barack Obama told a joint session of Congress earlier this week that his administration has a plan to prevent mortgage foreclosures for millions of Americans. In fact, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proudly says that it is shoveling money out the door as fast as it can.
Yesterday, researchers at the University of Virginia took an in-depth look at just where foreclosures are happening. It turns out that 87 percent of housing value loss is taking place in just four states--California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada. According the press release describing the study:
National housing price declines and foreclosures have not been as severe as some analyses have indicated, and they are not as important as financial manipulations in bringing on the global recession, according to a new analysis of foreclosures in 50 states, 35 metropolitan areas and 236 counties by University of Virginia professor William Lucy and graduate student Jeff Herlitz.

Their analysis shows that most foreclosures have been concentrated in California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona and a modest number of metropolitan counties in other states. In fact, they claim that "66 percent of potential housing value losses in 2008 and subsequent years may be in California, with another 21 percent in Florida, Nevada and Arizona, for a total of 87 percent of national declines."

"California had only 10 percent of the nation's housing units, but it had 34 percent of foreclosures in 2008," Lucy and Herlitz reported.
It should be noted that the current average national foreclosure rate of 0.79 percent is about double the rate it was in 2000. What about the effect of foreclosures on the balance sheets of American banks?
Potential losses in housing values from 2008 foreclosures in all 50 states — if values decline to 2000 levels — were less than one-third of the $350 billion provided to banks and insurance companies to cope with losses in mortgage-backed securities, Lucy and Herlitz estimated.
See more of the UVA findings here.
*not "foreclosures" as originally headlined. Nevada, California, Arizona, and Florida do rank numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 in foreclosure activity. All together the four states account for 55 percent of national foreclosure activity.

K~Bob| 3.4.09 @ 7:41AM

"And I am attacking liberals when I explode crazy liberal Neocon 'ideas', such as wars to impose democracy. Or open borders, unending mass 'legal' immigration. Yes, we can have some legal immigration, but not MASS immigration. Free trade is another liberal idea, pushed by liberals to this day. Until we stop adopting liberal ideas as conservative ones, we aren’t going to get anywhere."

You can't "impose" democracy. Thus the claim that that was what Iraq was about is nonsense. You create conditions for it, you help set it up, and you let the chips fall where they may. Anyone with connecting neurons knows this, but folks harp away on the "impose democracy" or the "war for oil" or some other stupid notion. Read the freaking AUMF.

Free trade is just trade. Protectionism is nothing more than a stalling tactic that always leaves the country weak. When I read bizarre notions like what you typed, I'm doubly glad I am not, nor have ever been a "conservative."

ruth| 3.4.09 @ 2:40PM

Paul, where did you go to school? (If you don't mind me asking). Don't get me started on immigration--it has decimated my state, California. Truly heartbreaking.

Paul E. More| 3.4.09 @ 8:21PM

Ruth: I don’t want to give too much away, but I went to a private school outside of a large city. My grandmother helped pay for it, plus me working, sometimes during the school year, at night and on weekends. So, I was poor with rich friends. When I arrived I was pretty out of place, but I did have a faculty member assigned to me, a very nice Jewish man who was one of the few conservatives on the faculty. It was funny how when we met and talked in his office we discovered how much we agreed on things, so he helped me avoid classes with bad and ultra-left wing profs. I was over at his house often, played board games with his kids, tennis with him etc. After college I went to grad school at a famous Catholic university where they play football (but I’m protestant and prefer baseball to football). Then back east again.

Paul E. More| 3.4.09 @ 8:28PM

Can we “create” conditions that will lead to democracy? I am far from sure that can be done. Until the last two decades conservatives didn’t believe that, witness the work of James Burnham, Irving Babbitt and even Jeane Kirkpartrick whose Commentary essay entitled “Dictatorship and Double Standards” made the case that authoritarian regimes are more likely to turn democratic or classically liberal than are totalitarian systems.

Note that in the Western world, classical liberal politics preceded democracy. In fact, democracy or democratic politics have often been associated with the death of classical liberal politics, if only because the many vote to take the property and rights away from the few or fewer. The American Founding Fathers were skeptical of “democracy” per se, with Jefferson being a partial exception. The move to more purely democratic politics in the Jacksonian era was considered a “revolution” of sorts in American politics, which even Jefferson may have lamented late in his life as he became more friendly with his former political enemy John Adams, whose Federalist politics Jefferson viewed as too anti-democratic.

ruth| 3.5.09 @ 12:49AM

I went to the University of Santa Clara in California. Jesuits teach there and they are/were fabulous! So smart, but liberal. They made us work for every good grade, but it was worth it. They were gifted teachers.

EscTechSite| 6.15.09 @ 1:07AM

Rush is such a retarded person. I hate that guy.. but then again he has so many viewers or listeners that enjoy him. Is it this guy who is stupid or are the people who listen to him that cannot figure out what this guy says is complete rubish

powerful paddy| 6.18.09 @ 1:46PM

ugh rush really should be allowed on tv, neigher should david letterman though

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