No Time for Mischief - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
No Time for Mischief
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WASHINGTON — There is a vexed brouhaha going on between two of my favorite conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and Senator Tom Coburn of the great state of Oklahoma. It has been caused by a mischief-maker by the name of Jeff Greenfield, now working apparently for CBS TV. Greenfield began his TV career as a mischief-maker on the late William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” and continued it on CNN. Now he interviews personages for CBS, but he has not lost his knack for creating a row…or simple confusion.

Shortly after President Barack H. Obama took the oath of office, Greenfield was interviewing Senator Coburn, whom he stopped in his tracks after the senator genially offered that he wished the new President well and hoped he would “succeed.” Greenfield notified the senator that Limbaugh, “probably the most prominent conservative commentator in America,” did not wish Senator Obama success. Greenfield quoted Limbaugh as saying, “I know what he [President Obama] wants to do and I don’t want him to succeed.” That sounds like Rush has gone into kamikaze mode. It sounds downright unpatriotic. Yet it misrepresents what Rush was talking about, and later on his radio show Rush explained his point.

All depends on what President Obama “wants to do,” and Rush believes he wants to socialize the economy — the banks, healthcare, the auto industry, the works. Rush believes that state control of commerce is, well, the road to serfdom, as Friedrich von Hayek put it six decades ago. Since Hayek’s time we have had ample evidence to meditate on the performance of socialism, and such renowned socialist states as India (the soft form of socialism) and China (the rough form of socialism) have discarded it. Both have fashioned their economies around market capitalism and flourished in a way that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

Capitalism brings prosperity. Since the Reagan Revolution, America has enjoyed a quarter of a century of almost unbroken economic growth. There were two brief and shallow recessions, but in modern history there has never been such a period of prosperity. Now we are in a recession and it appears it will be neither short nor shallow. That is why I have been drawing attention to the original cause of this recession, namely government. It was government, specifically the Clinton Administration, that goaded two government instrumentalities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to traffic in subprime mortgages, and traffic wantonly. The junk mortgages were sold all over the world, often to government-regulated institutions. I stand with the newly elected President in admiring government regulation, at least some government regulation. But this economic mess proves that government regulation is not foolproof. The regulators were human and humans fall prey to error, as they did in regulating American banks in the 1990s and more recently.

So once again Rush is right. Socialism is a menace to freedom and to prosperity. If President Obama nationalizes as extensively as some of his supporters are advocating, I too will be against him. Fortifying the banking system and buying up troubled assets is wise, and, as was seen in the late 1980s rescue of the troubled savings and loan institutions, is effective. The President’s proposed giant stimulus program is another matter. We have tried such programs in the past. They are ineffective, breed corruption, and leave in their wake inflation.

Yet for my part I am willing to give the new President the benefit of the doubt. In his fine and workmanlike speech he spoke out for markets, saying their capacity “to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.” There was a day not so long ago when liberals denied markets even existed. The gat advocate of the mixed economy John Kenneth Galbraith, who late in life identified himself as a socialist, jeered at the very idea of a market, joking that he could not see it, he could not touch it. Well, most educated people now recognize the existence of markets and their indispensability to economic prosperity. I say let us give the new President an opportunity to show us what he knows about markets.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
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R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief ofThe American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: The Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery. He makes frequent appearances on national television and is a nationally syndicated columnist, whose articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, National Review, Harper’s, Commentary, The (London) Spectator, Le Figaro (Paris), and elsewhere. He is also a contributing editor to the New York Sun.
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