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Another Inauspicious Omen: Gersonism Revisited

By Robert Stacy McCain on 8.19.09 @ 2:59PM

No sooner do I get through hammering David Frum for his errors than I turn around to discover that we are to be afflicted with new plagues from the Duke of Dull, that eminent Master of Mediocrity, Michael Gerson.

Not content merely to waste newsprint with his boring biweekly forays to the frontiers of obviousness on the op-ed pages of The Washington Post, the Titan of Tedium has now combined with former Bush deputy Peter Wehner to subject the unwitting subscribers of Commentary to a potentially lethal soporific entitled, "The Path to Republican Revival."

This is a classic example of what inevitably happens when bureaucrats attempt journalism. At nearly 5,000 words, this massive malodorous manure pile might be mined like a Comstock Lode of idiocy, yet its telling point is this bland sentence:

Republicans will also have to put forth a comprehensive reform agenda.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. How many times do we need to tell the policy wonks that, in opposition, conservatives ought not be too specific in offering alternatives to the policies of Obama, Pelosi, Reid et al.? Given the current powerlessness of the GOP, it is their duty as the opposition to remind Americans daily that the Democrats are leading the country straight to hell.

Republicans need not, and arguably should not, offer their own roadmap to heaven, which can then be picked apart at leisure by the Democrats' own policy wonks. In opposition, the GOP should instead concentrate on fomenting resistance to the incumbent party's agenda, campaigning on a pledge to reverse course, and be content that the policy specifics of that promised reversal will be hashed out after the Democrats are dismounted.

The Gerson/Wehner call for a "comprehensive reform agenda" is patent nonsense, the exact opposite of sound opposition strategy, a make-work project for underemployed former Bushlings.

Gerson, readers will recall, was chief of the Bush White House speechwriting shop, in which he glory-hogged all the credit while mismanaging the talents of better writers. Matthew Scully has related that tale, and our straying friend David Frum was among Scully's co-sufferers under the Gerson regime. And in that, Frum certainly deserves our sympathy.

Whatever David Frum's errors, they are at least usually interesting errors. By contrast, Gersonism is a Brompton cocktail of bad writing in service of bad ideas, a surefire formula for Republican suicide.

View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

Chris B| 8.19.09 @ 3:04PM

Amen, Brother !

Teflon93| 8.19.09 @ 3:36PM

Indeed.

Let's not forget that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama offered NO SPECIFICS WHATSOEVER when running in opposition in 2006 and 2008. Indeed, they claimed no such specifics were needed.

So why, pray tell, is the GOP uniquely required to do so?

BobbyC3| 8.19.09 @ 3:39PM

Opposition, as the Dems are finding, is much easier than leading. Don't think it would hurt to have some guiding, defining principles that would be useful once you were back in leadership.

Robert Stacy McCain| 8.19.09 @ 4:02PM

"Don't think it would hurt to have some guiding, defining principles that would be useful once you were back in leadership"

Agreed, Bobby. However, conservatives need no lectures on "guiding, defining principles" from a clueless self-important dullard like Michael Gerson. And if you can stay awake long enough to actually read his and Wehner's 5,000-word waste of pixels, I think you'll find their thesis can be summed up as, "Don't try anything that Arlen Specter or Susan Collins might possibly vote against."

Being boring is bad. Being wrong is worse. Being wrong and boring is the worst.

Derek Leaberry| 8.19.09 @ 4:09PM

Now that Dick Cheney is off reservation, Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner are the last of the forlorn tribe of Bushies not part of the actual Bush family. What those two gentlemen offer is nothing more than doom for conservatism and the Republican Party. King Midas had more wisdom.

louis tully| 8.19.09 @ 4:38PM

"subject the unwitting subscribers of Commentary to a potentially lethal soporific . . . "
Now we know why Commentary recently took the aarguably unusual step of banning Comments on their own blog.

I don't look forward to a Republican revival; the memories of TARP, Romneycare and bailouts are too fresh.

And if I were interested in a Whig revival, I think I'd pass over Bush WH folks, along with McCain staffers!

John G.| 8.19.09 @ 4:44PM

When you're storming the gates of Berlin, you don't have a chat with the Nazi scum to explain to them when, where and how the Nuremberg trials will take place.

You attack. And don't let up.

The hard leftists of the Democratic party won't give up on a public option, on co-ops, on whatever, so long as the eventual goal is the destruction of the private healthcare insurance industry. Heck, they've literally said as much.

The Republican party as it's currently situated doesn't have the cajones or the political will to keep pushing, so it's up to the bloggers, the grassroots, the "mobs of right-wing extremists" to make the point for them.

I think it was LBJ who said if you're opponent wishes to make an ass of himself, get out of the way (paraphrasing). The Republicans are doing that for now, and the Democrats' and the president's numbers are cliff-diving.

It was the president who said "if they bring a knive, we bring a gun", which should be taken figuratively of course, but it is what it is.

The Frums of the world only want acceptance by a complacent media and a partisan government, which explains their buffoonery. Let them continue to make buffoons of themselves.

Eventually the Republican leadership will have to come up with some sort of plan, and let's pray that there is a conservative basis for that. But for now, let the president waste his political capital on having the Democratic party take full ownership of this monstrosity.

c. j. acworth| 8.19.09 @ 5:36PM

"massive malodorous manure pile" , "Comstock Lode of idiocy" ? Jeeze, McCain, don't hold back, tell us what you really think! : )

Robert Belvedere| 8.19.09 @ 7:42PM

Spot-on, Stacy.

First of all, we should never pretend to be, or seek to be, Santa Claus. The conservative philosophy is antithetical to immanentizing the eschaton. That is why, when applied, it works: true conservatives understand that man and his world can never achieve perfection.

Secondly, you are correct that any policy specifics we offer will be picked apart by the Left. Not only that, they will be distorted and lied about. The Left will do whatever it takes to win—they always have because they are relativists and, more importantly, because the believe so strongly that they have THE ANSWER to all of man's problems. Morally we conservatives are prevented from lowering ourselves to their level and battling against them in the gutter. Therefore, we cannot afford to give them the rope by which they will pull us down with their slimy hands.

Finally, offering to simply turn back the tide of Progressivism that has been engulfing our shores for a century and eroding our foundations is enough of a platform. We have a real opportunity here to begin to reverse one hundred years of Leftist thinking. A great many of the peoples of the United States have finally awoken to the dangers some of us have been warning about for decades. This is our last chance. If we fail, Caesarism will follow in the wake of our defeat. And then Gerson and Frum and Parker, et. al. will be our Brutus and Cassius—and look how well that worked [too foolish, too late].

Quoted from and linked to at:
http://www.thecampofthesaints.com/2009.08.16_arch.html#1250725033418

Teflon93| 8.20.09 @ 9:24AM

Frum and the Fifth Column insist upon "alternatives" for one reason and one reason only: they feel they can control the agenda by controlling who gets to craft these alternatives.

Look for how they use the "realistic" term. What is realistic is what appeals to them. Period. When a conservative seeks to return to the pre-Great Society free market of healthcare, we are not being "realistic". That alternative is not valid.

But reforming Medicare---something that has been talked about since the program began and yet has NEVER been done---that's "realistic". Because Frum says so.

Meanwhile, the recent evidence of how Democrats came to power in 2006 and 2008 merely by running AGAINST Bush argues to the contrary. Where's Frum's evidence that alternatives are needed for victory on Election Day?

Ronsonic| 9.22.09 @ 2:05PM

They simply misunderstand everything that conservatism is about. Big, dramatic, bold new plans are not conservative. Understanding that people can take better care of themselves and their country just by muddling along without big new initiatives is conservative.

Policies that give people more and better options for taking care of themselves is conservative. For better or worse, that doesn't make for grand reading or big campaign promises. That was the act of genius behind the "Contract with America" to whittle something newsworthy out of conservative principles. Gerson and Wehner are not ones to look to for works of genius.

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