Do I want President Obama to fail? No. I want the country to succeed despite his agenda.

That’s the same wish I had when Bill Clinton was President. I had nothing but raw contempt for his political vision, but I wanted the country to remain prosperous and free in spite of Clinton’s attempts to muck things up. Ultimately, we survived the Clinton era. Despite my general pessimism, there’s still a part of me that believes we can make it through the Obama years as well.

I didn’t want Clinton to fail so much as I believed failure would inevitably consume him. The same can be said for the Clinton imitator currently in the White House.

If you’re a patriot, you want your country to succeed no matter which politician is in power. Is America only great when a Republican is in charge?

Many conservatives believe Obama does not fully appreciate the traditions, the values and the sacrifices that made America the strongest country on earth. Well, so what? Clinton and Jimmy Carter had the same paucity of patriotism—yet the country remained great despite their lack of faith in its greatness.

No one man, no one President, can weaken the greatness of America—no matter how socialist, radical or ineffective that President may be. The Founders ensured that no President would be able to single-handedly destroy what they worked so hard to build.

Now, it is true that the people, collectively, can nullify the country’s greatness. An uneducated, crude populace, one that can be easily swayed by charming words and effective marketing, can create the circumstances under which America becomes just another country. However, so long as the country’s people remain intellectually and philosophically strong, the country will retain its richness.

There are some excitable folks on the American right—folks who are convinced Obama is now engaged in a George Soros-funded plot to condition the masses into accepting Big Government as the supplier of their needs. Even if this is true, Obama cannot be a successful sorcerer of socialism unless the people willingly choose to be put under his spell.

The world didn’t come to an end on November 4, 2008. We are still a free people, a free system, a free republic. If we could make it through the dark nights of 1964, 1976 and 1992, why couldn’t we make it through this particular storm?

Obama is a strong man—but he is not stronger than the people! No President is! When the people are united, there is no political force strong enough to defeat them.

Some of us aren’t united right now. Especially on the right, it seems we are living in a divided house—Northern vs. Southern, moderate vs. conservative, big-tent vs. Reagan-redux. The “freedom family” is filled with innumerable sibling rivalries. Yet a family always sticks together against a common adversary—and despite the street scuffle currently taking place between the Gingrich-Steele-Frum faction and the Limbaugh-Palin-Coulter crew, we know they will inevitably stand together as soldiers against statism.

So long as Americans maintain their love of freedom and hope for a better tomorrow, this country will remain strong, regardless of Obama’s regressive progressivism. So long as we have a passion for liberty, we will be able to outlast the failed ideas of the past.

Americans don’t surrender. We didn’t surrender to the British. We didn’t surrender to the Nazis. We didn’t surrender to the Communists. We didn’t surrender when some Americans tried to oppress other Americans. We surely won’t surrender to ideas silly and strange—even if those ideas are presented as hope and change.

Yes, a majority of American voters expressed their love for Obama last fall. We know many of these people. They are our friends, our neighbors, our relatives. They are not ignorant or misguided; they believed, correctly or incorrectly, that Obama was the better choice. Because we feel Obama’s vision is not compatible with America’s best interests, it’s up to us to explain, with logic and rationality, why his conclusions are in error, and why we so passionately oppose his plans. With the tools at our disposal, we must highlight Obama’s flawed proposals. We must convince those who voted for Obama that his vision represents the opposite of progress and the opposite of prosperity.

It’s not an easy task—but it must be done, especially if we’re sincere about putting the country first.

Can there be such a thing as “upscale” conservative talk radio?

Last month, National Review writer John Derbyshire wrote a piece for The American Conservative entitled “How Radio Wrecks the Right.” In his view, while the current crop of conservative talk radio stars—Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Michael Savage—were outstanding when it came to energizing people already on the right, they weren’t so great when it came to recruiting new people to the ranks of conservatism.


“…[P]erhaps 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,” Derbyshire wrote. “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 write, ‘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.”


Derbyshire further argued that too often, these stars provide “…Happy Meal conservatism: cheap, childish, familiar. Gone are the internal tensions, the thought-provoking paradoxes, the ideological uneasiness that marked the early Right.” While these shows are quite popular, Derbyshire noted, they “…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.”


Derbyshire concluded: “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?”


Even if one rejects the characterization of Limbaugh and other talk stars as “carny barkers,” one must acknowledge that there are non-liberals who cannot be reached by the current roster of radio raconteurs. The Limbaugh/Hannity/Ingraham/Levin/Savage style just isn’t for everybody.


Derbyshire longs for a more “middlebrow” style of conservative radio. The late Tony Snow demonstrated this style when he used to fill in for Limbaugh. Snow eschewed Limbaugh’s acerbic style, but his strong conservatism always came through on the airwaves. Snow not only reaffirmed the beliefs of conservative listeners, he also gently compelled progressive listeners to take a second look at the veracity of their views. He never came across as someone who loathed liberals or Democrats, merely someone who recognized that conservative ideas were better for the country—and sincerely wanted liberals to understand their ideological errors.


The great Dr. Walter Williams uses a similar style when he fills in for Limbaugh. Williams knows how to calm the most aggrieved liberal soul; with tremendous warmth and humor, he illustrates the logical gaps in progressive philosophy and the intellectual strength of conservatism. He doesn’t need parodies or catchphrases to get his point across: he simply transports wisdom from his mind to his lips, and leaves it to the listener to come to the correct conclusions.


In a March 4 appearance on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, National Review writer Jonah Goldberg showed that he shares Williams’ gifts. As the lone conservative involved in a discussion of the Rush Limbaugh-Michael Steele feud, Goldberg wowed listeners with his insights about Limbaugh’s legacy and the GOP’s current leadership woes. Goldberg effectively challenged the preconceptions of NPR’s audience: in a tone both firm and civil, he explained the left’s use of Limbaugh as the ultimate bogeyman and the internal warfare on the right between “reform” conservatives (who feel Limbaugh has become a liability to the right) and “traditional” conservatives (who feel Limbaugh’s voice is needed now more than ever). Goldberg was on the show for about forty-five minutes, but one could have listened to him for another three hours.


It’s too bad Williams and Goldberg don’t have full-time national radio shows. There’d be no complaints about lowbrow or downscale conservative talk radio if these brilliant men shared the stage with the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world.

Conservatives are preparing to fight a war they may have already lost.

The message from the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference was simple: “We Will Never Surrender.” Conservatives vowed to resist President Obama’s progressive agenda and recapture the House, Senate and White House in the name of protecting freedom, capitalism, God, family, country and apple pie.

It’s nice to see conservatives so motivated. It’s too bad it took them so long to be motivated.

Let’s be honest: the radical left was always more motivated to change the country than the traditionalist right was to maintain it. Progressives have been on offense for seventy-six years, while conservatives never even bothered to play defense until ‘09. No wonder the left is so far ahead on points.

The left may have had the wrong values, but they certainly had the right tactics. Since the 1930s, progressives have incrementally seized control of numerous American institutions—academia, entertainment, journalism and law among them. The left shrewdly realized that once they controlled these institutions, it wouldn’t take long before Americans heavily influenced by these institutions voluntarily decided to put political power in progressive hands.

The left used these institutions to present progressive views as moral and conservative/traditionalist views as immoral. The left essentially created a demand for its own product—and this business model succeed beyond the left’s wildest dreams.

Conservatives and traditionalists insist it’s still a center-right nation. This is, of course, errant nonsense. With left-wing Democrats having won three of the last five Presidential elections, and with the popular culture thoroughly dominated by progressive points of view, it’s clear that America is now a center-left nation, a light-blue country with fading specks of red.

Is Obama pursuing a hard-left, socialist agenda? Of course. Why he is doing so? Because the opposition to his agenda is feeble and weak, long on talk but very short on action. Thanks in part to the left’s control of America’s most influential institutions, conservatives and traditionalists are a declining percentage of the United States population. With few exceptions, we are all socialists now.

The average American now values perceived comfort over actual freedom. As a result, socialism can spread as far as it can possibly go throughout America, with little real opposition. The left has been tremendously successful at presenting its vision as moral—so successful that today, if you stop the average person on the street and ask him or her the source of the phrase “From each accordingly to his ability, to each according to his need,” he or she will probably say that Jesus spoke these words in the New Testament.

Conservatism and false hope don’t go together. It’s a lovely fantasy to think the American right can launch a successful resistance movement after nearly eight decades of progressive cultural dominion. Socialism is unjust, unfair, cruel and unusual—but its powerful tides have already smashed apart the levees of traditionalism and capitalism in the United States.

Today, the average American is not some John Wayne-style rugged individualist, but someone who is, for good or ill, willing to accept massive government in exchange for material and psychological protection from market forces, poor health, bad luck, or any combination thereof. Obama knows this: it’s why he won.

Conservatives mock Obama as a pseudo-religious figure—but the unholy reality for the American right is that Obama is indeed, from a political standpoint, all-powerful. Even if his economic plans don’t work as planned, millions of Americans will give him credit for having his heart in the right place, as opposed to the supposedly cruel and uncaring Republicans.

Of course Obama and his progressive allies are attempting to depict Rush Limbaugh as the icon of the American right. Millions of Americans have been conditioned by the left to think of Limbaugh as Archie Bunker with money. By characterizing the right as obedient to Limbaugh, Obama can discredit the conservative movement in the minds of those who don’t listen to Limbaugh’s program or read his columns and books. From a certain perspective, it’s a brilliant strategy.

Today, conservatives seem to think of themselves as the real-life equivalent of the Wolverines, the teenage resistance force that battled Soviet and Central American Communists in John Milius’ 1984 film Red Dawn. Yet this is real life, not a Hollywood backlot. The progressive forces aren’t invaders; they’ve been here seventy-six years, and they used psychological and institutional forces, not physical ones, to take control of the country. The Wolverines of Red Dawn were young and determined to fight; our Wolverines are graying, tired, worn down, and on the verge of extinction.

Conservatives are vowing to lead a resistance—but how can they, when so many Americans seem to find socialism simply irresistible?

I hope the folks who participated in the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference had a good time, and came away from the event motivated to stop President Obama’s government-swelling agenda and return Republicans to positions of leadership in the House, Senate and White House. I also hope these conservatives keep a close eye on Republicans once they return to power, so that they don’t betray limited-government principles again.

The conservative movement let its guard down in the 2000s. The American right decided to embrace George W. Bush despite explicit evidence that he was closer ideologically to his father than he was to Ronald Reagan. Looking back at the 2000 primary, it’s clear that Bush and John McCain were two sides of the same moderate coin. Why didn’t we look for a real conservative back then? Instead, we made a deal with the devil—and ended up among the damned.

It’s good to see conservatives standing foursquare against socialism now. However, the electorate will not suddenly forget how conservatives tolerated socialism when a big-spending Republican was advancing it. It won’t be enough for conservatives to oust Obama and the Democrats from power. They must also demand excellence from their Republican successors—and judge those successors harshly if they fail to deliver.

Washington’s lures are powerful, and so many Republicans have gone to the city as conservative virgins only to become big-government whores. Why is it that Republicans can’t practice abstinence when faced with the seductions of government largesse? Don’t they understand that they will contract the social diseases of fraud and corruption if they sleep with this particular mistress?

Sure, it will be wonderful if Republicans sweep to power in 2010 and recapture the White House in 2012. Yet it will be for naught if those Republicans turn into hacks once they get to D.C. Conservatism will die a bitter and lonely death unless those who run on a platform of Goldwater-Reagan-Gingrich conservatism remain true to that platform in Washington.

As scornful as I am of Obama’s solidarity with socialism, I cannot expel from my memory his predecessor’s weakness for big government—and the failure of movement conservatives to strongly condemn his foolishness. Instead of demanding fiscal accountability and responsibility from Bush, the American right glorified Dubya the same way the mainstream media glorified Obama. Few conservatives seemed to care about Bush’s financial recklessness: so long as he was whacking terrorists abroad and defeating liberals at home, the right felt no need to hold Bush to strict ideological scrutiny.

It’s surprising that Obama hasn’t done more to emphasize the American right’s apparent double standard. From a certain perspective, it seems that the right only feels massive government spending is bad when Democrats are doing it; when Republicans spend like Navy alcoholics, the conservative response is, in essence, “So what?”

The conservative movement won’t be able to get away with this apparent double standard if the GOP returns to power in the early 2010s. The country will turn its back on the Republicans for good if the party’s elected officials behave as irresponsibly as they did the last time the GOP controlled the House, Senate and White House. Given a choice between the “Big Government” party and the “We’re Lying Through Our Teeth When We Say We Support Limited Government” party, voters will logically choose the former every time. In fact, if Republicans abandon their limited-government values again, disgruntled right-leaning voters could, in theory, abandon the GOP and become Blue Dog Democrats. One can easily envision a scenario in which a hypocritical Republican Party shrinks to rump status as right-leaning voters decide to join the Democrats in massive numbers in an effort to pull the now-dominant party to the center.

Seeing as how such an effort would likely fail, leading to a left-wing Democrat Party having near-total dominion over the American political system, conservatives need to ask themselves: is this what they want the future to look like? If not, they should commit themselves to holding the Republican Party’s feet to the fire once the party regains power. Conservatives cannot afford to ignore, downplay, or make excuses for the party’s failure to adhere to limited-government principles; their willingness to ignore the party’s insincerity regarding these principles is in part what caused the current conservative/Republican crisis.

Stopping Obama’s “radical agenda” is fine—but it’s ultimately insufficient. If Republicans regain power and again toss limited-government principles to the curb, the conservative movement must give those Republicans the scorn and criticism they deserve. No more free passes. No more double standards. No more Bush-league behavior.

Michael Steele is, if nothing else, the smartest man in the GOP.

Steele’s getting heat from progressives such as Andrew Sullivan and the operators of the popular pro-Democrat blog Think Progress for remarks he made during his February 23 appearance on Mike Gallagher’s program. The Salem Radio Network star asked Steele if the time had come for Republicans to “…consider some sort of alternative to redefining marriage and maybe in the road, down the road to civil unions. Do you favor civil unions?”

In a shrewd response, Steele said: “No, no no. What would we do that for? What are you, crazy? No. Why would we backslide on a core, founding value of this country? I mean this isn’t something that you just kind of like, ‘Oh well, today I feel, you know, loosey-goosey on marriage.’”

Think Progress accused Steele of hypocrisy, noting that in recent weeks he has suggested the party needs to be open to those who might have differing views on issues such as same-sex marriage and civil unions. What Think Progress doesn’t realize is that Steele is not actually contradicting himself.

Last week, Steele announced plans to rebrand the GOP in order to attract younger voters. Surely, Steele knows that many young voters either support same-sex marriage/civil unions or could not care less about the issue of legal recognition for gay couples. Voters under the age of 35 have grown up in an era marked by the open integration of gays and lesbians into the American mainstream.

Steele also knows that, if he openly came out in favor of civil unions, the GOP’s socially conservative base would crucify him—and not figuratively, either. Even though he’s the head of the RNC, social conservatives still hold Steele in suspicion because he’s from Maryland and because he used to pal around with Christie Todd Whitman. If an alleged RINO officially endorsed civil unions, his tenure as RNC chairman would effectively end.

So what did Steele do? He expressed opposition to civil unions, knowing that America’s left-libertarian culture will soon render the issue moot.

Same-sex marriage is on its way to becoming the law of the land, despite what happened in California last November; the progressive judges President Obama plans to appoint to the federal bench will not hesitate to make rulings that will effectively nullify state laws against same-sex marriage, just as the Supreme Court once nullified state laws banning marriages between participants of different races. Progressives understand that the path to “equal marriage” lies in the federal courts—and Obama will clear that path through his appointments.

Once same-sex marriage becomes the law in all fifty states, the Republican Party will either attempt to nullify the ruling via a constitutional amendment, or go with the flow and embrace the ruling as a sign of social progress. If the party determines that there is a greater political benefit in accepting the ruling (because of shifting cultural tides and growing social libertarianism in the body politic), the party will undoubtedly choose the latter approach.

Steele knows this. So why would he want to rock the boat?

Same-sex marriage will be nationalized in the very near future, because progressives, as the late Paul Weyrich noted ten years ago, won the cultural war. Because they emerged victorious (after scoring crucial victories on the battlefields of law, politics, entertainment, journalism and education), they will enjoy the benefits of victory---and the establishment of same-sex marriage via the federal courts will be one of those benefits.

Steele is a businessman. He knows that at some point, the GOP will have to confront the issue of same-sex marriage/civil unions, and will likely choose the path of least political resistance. He also knows that time has not arrived. Until it does, he’s going to keep calm.

This is not to say that Steele actually supports same-sex marriage or civil unions. He is solidly conservative when it comes to social issues—not solid enough for those who demand he meet an impossible standard of purity, but solid enough for common-sense conservatives. Steele is a traditionalist, and thus views marriage as an institution that should be explicitly, and exclusively, heterosexual.

Yet Steele can read the tea leaves. He knows that, for a growing number of Americans, same-sex marriage isn’t even an issue. He knows it won’t be long before the GOP and the Democrats are virtually indistinguishable on this issue. So he’ll say one thing, knowing in a few years, his party will do something else.

Who remembers George W. Bush?

It’s only been a month since he left the White House, and already it seems like he was never there. The 43rd President has faded quietly from the scene, seemingly never to return. How could one man fall so far so fast?

Bush has been forgotten by his enemies on the left, who have turned their energies toward other efforts—namely protecting President Obama at all costs and figuring out ways to drive conservative talk radio off the air. He has been forgotten by his defenders in the conservative media, who are now focused on stopping the implementation of Obama’s dogmatically lefty agenda. He’s been forgotten by the American people, who now want to know if Obama will do a better job than the man he replaced.

It’s virtually impossible to find anyone who has even the slightest bit of affection for Bush, who sees even the tiniest thing positive about his eight years as President. Even the conservative pundits who were singing his praises on his way out of office have suddenly become mute, not even willing to suggest that Bush would have responded to the current economic woes with more wisdom than Obama.

It seems there’s now a consensus that the Bush years were terrible ones for the country; either openly or subtly, folks across the ideological spectrum are communicating the view that Bush paved the way for the current malaise. While it’s inaccurate to blame Bush for all that is currently wrong, this belief has an approval rating even higher than Obama’s.

One cannot blame intellectually honest conservatives for their lack of Bush nostalgia. Dubya helped steer the country towards socialism with the Billionaire’s Bailout of 2008; one still cringes upon recalling his moronic statement about abandoning free-market principles to save the free market system. Bush irreversibly destroyed the Republican Party’s credibility on limited-government and fiscal-stewardship matters, taking the GOP from good health to malnutrition in just under a decade.

It was once believed that only the “moonbat left” suffered from Bush Derangement Syndrome; this was, of course, before Bush’s actions drove intellectually honest conservatives out of their minds as well. Bush will be remembered by history not as the man who eased the burdens of Baghdad, but as the man who unwittingly aided and abetted the Democrat Party’s near-complete domination of American politics in the early-21st century. Bush allowed the left to whip his tail at every turn; even when he won, he still lost ground to progressives. He refused to fight back against the left’s assaults on his character, preferring to let talk radio, right-leaning newsmagazines and the conservative blogsophere do the defensive work for him—and ignoring the fact that these entities combined don’t have the power of the Presidential bully pulpit.

Conservatives who once made excuses for Bush’s questionable actions have often argued that Obama doesn’t have the necessary skills to be an effective leader. This argument may well be validated by history—but the conservatives who make this argument are clearly engaging in a bit of projection, because Bush also lacked true leadership skills. Looking back, intellectually honest conservatives should have realized Bush’s “compassionate conservative” slogan was little more than an acknowledgement of his intellectual incoherence. By calling himself a “compassionate conservative,” Bush was really saying: “I have no guiding principles, and once I get into office I won’t know what the hell to do—but hey, at least I won’t have intercourse with the interns!”

Yes, Bush kept his hands off the help. Yes, Bush put two decent Justices on the US Supreme Court. Yes, he technically brought liberty to a country that had only known tyranny. Yet Bush will go down in history as an unremarkable President, a poor man’s Reagan who knew the words of conservatism but not the tune. Bush was the Great American Hustler, a man who swindled conservatives the way a confidence man swindles marks. He was no great shakes as President; while Reagan changed history, Bush merely changed his drawers.

No wonder Bush has already faded into the ether; what was worth remembering about him? Maybe the lefties were right—maybe Bush did indeed lack gravitas as a Presidential candidate, thus necessitating the selection of Dick Cheney as a running mate. Maybe Bush was indeed the intellectually incurious frat boy Al Gore’s supporters insisted he was. Maybe conservatives should have demanded something better in 1999-2000, something better than the son-of-a-Bush we ultimately settled on.

Imagine if an actual Reagan-Gingrich conservative had been President between 2001-2009. Can anyone deny that such a President would have left the country in better shape than Dubya did?

If Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is serious about restoring the GOP’s power in the Northeast, he should keep his eye on developments in Massachusetts, where beleaguered Governor—and Barack’s best buddy—Deval Patrick could face a strong Republican challenger next year.

Bay State Republicans—short on numbers, long on hope—felt their spirits rise this week after Harvard Pilgrim Health Care CEO Charles Baker announced that he was considering a gubernatorial run. Baker, who served admirably in the administrations of former Republican Governors William Weld and Paul Cellucci, told the Boston Herald that a run would be an “uphill climb”; however, considering Patrick’s weaknesses, such an effort might not be as hard as it would appear.

In a recent interview with Boston political reporter Jon Keller, Baker stated that Patrick deserved an “incomplete” grade for his handling of state government, a rather charitable assessment. “I think you’d have to give it an incomplete, because when Gov. Patrick ran and was elected, we were in one environment, economically and sort of politically, and now we’re in a completely different one,” stated Baker, leaving unstated the fact that the “different” environment Massachusetts is in now is far, far worse than it was when Patrick became Governor.

Patrick promoted himself as a man who would change the way things worked in Massachusetts. Things have certainly changed in the state: taxes are escalating, jobs are disappearing, and corruption is growing. Morale is low in Massachusetts: those who voted for Patrick because he promised hope are now feeling betrayed, abandoned, played for dopes.

If Baker gets in the game, Patrick will be in for a bruising—losing?—contest. Sure, the incumbent (assuming he survives a likely primary challenge from state Treasurer Tim Cahill) will have some advantages: big-money Democrat donors, the support of the President and members of the state’s all-Democrat Congressional delegation, the hardcore loyalty of certain Democrat constituency groups. However, Patrick won’t have much of a record to run on: his greatest accomplishment as governor was the termination of efforts to democratically nullify the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling authorizing same-sex marriage.

Baker, on the other hand, is well-respected for his work during the Weld-Cellucci years. As a 1998 Boston Globe Magazine profile noted, “[Baker] is a conservative who has won over many liberals; he is the brains behind welfare and Medicaid reforms that have set standards for other reforms across the country. Baker helped raise Massachusetts's fiscal ranking from 50th—a shame shared with Louisiana—to 11th. Brash and blunt, straight-shooting and wise-cracking, he has come to command the respect of Beacon Hill and the begrudging affection of the press.”

Prior to joining the Weld administration, Baker earned the respect of those opposed to the Bay State’s dominant political vision with his work on behalf of the Pioneer Institute, a think tank that fought for free-market solutions to the state's problems. His commitment to reform defined his tenure at Harvard Pilgrim, which under his watch has gained recognition as one of the nation’s most well-run health plan organizations.

Baker would make an outstanding governor, and would also return some semblance of political balance to a state that has more Democrats than the Obama administration has tax scofflaws. However, Baker can’t do it alone. If he obtains the Republican nomination next year, Steele’s assistance will come in handy.

If Baker defeats Patrick, it will be a tremendous psychological blow for the Democrats—and especially for the President himself. How humiliating will it be for Obama if his close friend is conquered on the same night that Republicans make significant gains in the House and Senate? A Baker win, along with a dominant GOP performance in the midterms, would knock the Obama administration off its axis with only two years to go before the President’s own reelection campaign.

Steele shouldn’t listen to anyone who tells him to write off Massachusetts. The Bay State had solid Republican governors for sixteen years prior to Patrick’s victory. It can have another one after November 2010. Steele vowed that he would once again make the GOP competitive in the Northeast. If Baker challenges Patrick in 2010, Steele will have a perfect opportunity to fulfill that vow.

Massachusetts residents are being pounded by Gov. Patrick’s rough fists. Baker has the skills necessary to hit Patrick with a knockout blow that will send him into retirement. If he gets in the ring, Steele should be in his corner.

Could the Svengali of socialism secure a second term?

Whether the stimulus succeeds or fails, and despite the embarrassments at the outset of his Presidency, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that President Obama could be re-elected in November 2012. The casual assumption on the part of too many conservatives that Obama is a lock to become Jimmy Carter Jr. is faulty. Even if the economy remains troubled, Obama will head into the 2012 race with numerous institutional advantages—ones that will be quite difficult for any Republican to overcome.

The United States Presidency is the world’s most powerful bully pulpit, one that Obama can—and will—use to smear Republicans and conservatives who oppose him. With the assistance of a still-powerful mainstream press, Obama can easily convince the American people that the country’s economic troubles (if they are still apparent in 2012) are simply the lingering effects of Bushonomics. That the argument is false will not matter. Propaganda works, and Obama and his supporters know how to use it effectively.

Even if the Republicans are successful in the 2010 midterms, their achievements still won’t heal the internal divisions within the GOP. Moderate and conservative Republicans will continue to struggle for control of the GOP; this struggle, of course, won’t end until one side forces the other side out of the party. Obama will continue to exploit the tensions within the GOP by promoting the idea that the Democrats welcome Republicans with “centrist” views.

It will be of little consequence if Obama has a rough or even disastrous first term; his pop-icon status will go undiminished among his core supporters. Any Republican who thinks nonwhites and voters under the age of 30 will abandon Obama even if the economy is still troubled is a fool. Obama represents history, and these voters will not walk away from history.

With such advantages, the Republicans will need an extraordinary candidate just to be competitive with Obama. However, it appears that the GOP’s best chance for a 2012 victory—conservative main-eventer and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal—plans to sit on the sidelines, presumably in the belief that he’ll have a better shot in 2016. Unfortunately, the rest of the GOP bench isn’t as strong.

There’s no question that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will draw large numbers of conservatives to the polls. The problem is that (whether conservatives want to hear it or not) the mainstream press has successfully radicalized the American center against her, staining her with the false, yet indelible, mark of ultra-conservative ignorance. Palin is bright, bold, and brave—but she has been Borked, and there’s no way to reverse that.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney would have humiliated Obama in the Presidential debates, but he never got a chance to confront Obama when it counted. Romney was robbed in the 2008 GOP primary, victimized by those who chose not to accept the sincerity of his move towards the conservative mainstream. Even if Romney, by some literal miracle, received the 2012 Republican nomination, it’s not clear that the “Romney is a RINO!” crowd would actually show up on Election Day to support him.

Then there’s South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, a four-star conservative who seems to be the closest thing we have to a modern-day Reagan. A Sanford vs. Obama race would be a clear ideological fight in the vein of Goldwater vs. Johnson in 1964. Yet it would not be a fair fight, as the press and the Democrats would squeeze as much propagandistic fruit as possible out of the symbolism of the race (i.e., a white conservative from the Deep South attempting to force the nation’s first black President from power). Even if Michael Steele is still RNC Chairman going into 2012, it’s impossible to imagine the Republican Party being able to sustain the rhetorical blows the left would land in the event of such a contest.

Back in 1993, conservatives fantasized about Bill Clinton being forced from office in November 1996. Back then, there was talk that William Bennett, Dan Quayle and Jack Kemp had the skills necessary to take the fight to Clinton. After the 1994 midterms, conservatives were convinced that Clinton would topple like the Berlin Wall in just two years. Yet Clinton went on to win a second term in an Electoral College landslide.

Conservatives are now having similar daydreams about the fall of the house of Obama. They may be in for a rough and rude awakening in 2012.

February 12, 1999 was the day social conservatism died in America.

On that bitter day, President Bill Clinton was acquitted in his impeachment trial. The United States Senate determined that his perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky scandal did not warrant his removal from office; the Senate’s view was shared by two-thirds of the American people. With that decision, traditional American morality bit the dust.

Four days after Clinton’s acquittal, the late Paul Weyrich wrote an open letter to the American conservative movement in which he declared:

Cultural Marxism is succeeding in its war against our culture. The question becomes, if we are unable to escape the cultural disintegration that is gripping society, then what hope can we have? Let me be perfectly frank about it. If there really were a moral majority out there, Bill Clinton would have been driven out of office months ago. It is not only the lack of political will on the part of Republicans, although that is part of the problem. More powerful is the fact that what Americans would have found absolutely intolerable only a few years ago, a majority now not only tolerates but celebrates. Americans have adopted, in large measure, the MTV culture that we so valiantly opposed just a few years ago, and it has permeated the thinking of all but those who have separated themselves from the contemporary culture.

Further, Weyrich asserted:

I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn't mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn't going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important.

Weyrich died just a month after Barack Obama’s election. Weyrich had a number of physical ailments at the time of his passing, but it’s quite likely that he died of a broken heart, since Obama’s victory reinforced the painful accuracy of what he wrote nearly ten years earlier.

If a traditionalist majority still existed in this country—if we were truly a “center-right” nation—Obama would have been trounced on Election Day, and the McCain-Palin ticket would have gone over in a manner similar to Reagan-Bush in 1984. Obama’s victory brought home a truth too many conservatives are still reluctant to acknowledge: America is now a socially left-libertarian country.

Forget fluke results like California’s Proposition 8, a victory delivered in part by voters who, on the same day, selected a Presidential candidate whose judicial appointments will likely work to establish same-sex marriage as a national right. Look at the political and social culture in 2009—where are the traditionalist values? You couldn’t find them if your next heartbeat depended on it.

Social conservatism has been, for all intents and purposes, deleted from the American political and social culture. The courts, the schools, the mainstream press and the entertainment industry have done much to decimate the ranks of social conservatives. In addition, there have been instances where social conservatives have been their own worst enemies.

Social conservatives kept on singing Reagan’s praises even after he appointed two pro-abortion Supreme Court Justices. They continued to carry George W. Bush’s water even after it was clear to everyone else that Bush and his political consultants were merely exploiting their support for votes, and giving them little that was tangible in return. At times, it seemed that social conservatives wanted nothing more than “a place at the table.” Just let us feel important, they essentially told the GOP, and we won’t say anything even when you sell us down the river.

On the heels of Clinton’s impeachment, it seemed that social conservatives were gearing up for a comeback. They embraced Bush as a member of the club and worked tirelessly to propel him into the White House. Yet, as President, Bush did little to advance the goals of the social right. Sure, there were a few faith-based initiatives here and a few catchphrases about protecting marriage there. However, the only important thing Bush did for the social right was to involve himself in the Terri Schiavo controversy in Florida—a decision that, of course, turned everyone who wasn’t a social conservative against him.

Social conservatives should remember February 12, 1999 with disgust. It was a day that a corrupt President got away with his criminality—and a day that signaled the country’s irreversible move from traditionalism to social libertarianism. Thankfully, conservatism itself hasn’t died—and if the conservative movement can find a way to advance its goals despite the cultural and political changes of the last decade, there will be better days to come for the country.

Five years after its release, what is the legacy of The Passion of the Christ?

Mel Gibson’s blockbuster about the Crucifixion of Jesus was a culture-war touchstone when it opened on February 25, 2004. The Passion was in the right place at the right time: it opened in the midst of a divisive Presidential campaign and a heated debate about whether domestic and international forces—secularism at home and extremism abroad—would nullify Christianity as a potent force in the world.

The Passion had a tremendous influence on that debate. It is undeniable that the film played a crucial role in George W. Bush’s re-election to the Presidency. Were it not for the galvanizing force that the film (and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s November 2003 ruling on same-sex marriage) had on evangelical voters, John Kerry would have pulled off a victory that fall. The film reaffirmed their faith, and reawakened their desire to have a man who shared that faith in the White House.

There are many reasons why the film was so aggressively attacked by major critics. One reason is that these critics understood the motivational force that this film would have for the so-called religious right. The assaults on the film had an explicit political motivation; these critics sought to smear the film as being unworthy of the ticket price, so as to prevent viewers from being emotionally touched by the picture, and having that experience influence them for weeks and months.

Roger Ebert was one of the few major critics to give the film high praise. In a four-star Chicago Sun-Times review, Ebert declared that the film was “…[a] personal message movie of the most radical kind, attempting to re-create events of personal urgency….The filmmaker has put his artistry and fortune at the service of his conviction and belief, and that doesn't happen often.”

Further, Ebert noted that he “…was moved by the depth of feeling, by the skill of the actors and technicians, by their desire to see this project through no matter what. To discuss individual performances, such as James Caviezel's heroic depiction of the ordeal, is almost beside the point. This isn't a movie about performances, although it has powerful ones, or about technique, although it is awesome, or about cinematography (although Caleb Deschanel paints with an artist's eye), or music (although John Debney supports the content without distracting from it). It is a film about an idea. An idea that it is necessary to fully comprehend the Passion if Christianity is to make any sense. Gibson has communicated his idea with a singleminded urgency. Many will disagree. Some will agree, but be horrified by the graphic treatment. I myself am no longer religious in the sense that a long-ago altar boy thought he should be, but I can respond to the power of belief whether I agree or not, and when I find it in a film, I must respect it.”

Ebert also argued that The Passion was “…the most violent film I have ever seen.” As much as I like and respect Ebert, I always felt that he inserted this line into his review as a way to blow off whatever negative heat he expected to receive from fellow politically progressive critics. Black Hawk Down was far more off-the-charts violent than The Passion. No question about it.

Gibson’s film was a tremendous achievement, an emotionally wrenching yet intellectually captivating experience. James Caviezel delivered one of the best performances of this decade as Jesus. Maia Morgenstern (as Mary) and Monica Bellucci (as Mary Magdalene) also delivered superior work. Gibson’s artistry, his talent and his faith are evident in every second of the film.

Of course, The Passion was attacked for alleged anti-Semitism upon its release. While there were some scenes that Gibson would have been wise to exclude because they could have been easily misinterpreted, the film as a whole does not come across as intentionally anti-Semitic, a point Ebert noted in his Sun-Times review. Thus, I’ll always be more than a little angry at Gibson for his infamous hate-filled tirade following his arrest on DUI charges in California in July 2006. With a handful of venomous words, Gibson humiliated and embarrassed religious and secular conservatives who defended him against charges of intolerance when The Passion was released. While the film itself is bias-free, one cannot say the same about its creator.

I’ll always remember what it was like seeing The Passion: the emotional intensity of the film, the excellence of its performances, the tears of sorrow and expressions of faith by members of the audience. There will never be a movie like The Passion again. There will never be a cultural moment like the day it was released.

Whoooooo! Now we go to school.

The election of Michael Steele as the new chairman of the Republican National Committee is a stimulus package for the GOP—a stimulus that will actually work. For the first time since Newt Gingrich left Congress, the Republican Party has a real leader.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t think Steele could pull it off. I figured that he would be doomed by allegations that he wasn’t really conservative enough for the position, and that a candidate like Ken Blackwell or Saul Azunis would get the gig. Thank goodness I was wrong. Yesterday, Steele showed that anything is possible in America.

Steele is a committed conservative, a gifted speaker, a big-picture thinker. He admires Reagan, but he recognizes that we are not in Reagan’s time, and that the country needs a new conservatism for a new era. Under Steele, the GOP could reach heights it hasn’t seen since the 1980s.

The last two months have been distressing for conservative Republicans. (I would argue that the last eight years have been distressing for conservative Republicans because of the former President’s fetish for big government, but that’s for another day.) We lost the White House by running a weak, old, ideologically incoherent candidate against the most politically skilled Democrat in ages. Our Vice Presidential candidate was smeared in a manner similar to the way Robert Bork was treated in 1987. The GOP began to morph into a rump party as blacks, Latinos, Asians and young whites washed their hands of the Republicans, seemingly for good.

Can Steele reverse this trend? If he can’t do it, it cannot be done. Luckily, Steele has the talent necessary to make things work.

Maryland’s former lieutenant governor ran a tremendous US Senate campaign against Ben Cardin three years ago; considering his disadvantages (the deep-blue nature of Maryland politics, the national unpopularity of the GOP, the loyalty of the state’s black voters to the Democrat Party), Steele’s 44 percent finish in the Senate contest was quite impressive. Steele has vowed to make the GOP competitive again in the Northeast; having bet against him once and lost, I will not bet against him again with regard to achieving this goal.

Steele has the intelligence, the integrity and the desire to make the Republican Party strong again. He will be our political Columbus, taking conservatism to previously undiscovered territory. Steele will be everywhere, penetrating the barriers of dogmatic liberalism with his optimistic and principled message. He can take conservatism to the nightclub, the beauty salon, the barbershop, the corner store. He can take conservatism right back to the top, where it belongs.

He’ll have haters on the far left and haters on the far right. The moonbats will call him the same vulgar names they used to attack Clarence and Condi and Connerly. So what? They can’t stop him. The wingnuts—the hardcore ideologues whose minds are as small as the folks who now seek Jed Babbin’s ouster from Human Events because he doesn’t hate Mitt Romney—will also scandalize his name, calling him a RINO and a moderate because he has acknowledged that not everyone agrees with every last aspect of the GOP’s philosophy. So what? They can’t stop him either.

Michael Steele is now the GOP’s main-event star, a charismatic, compelling figure with a vision for victory and a plan to achieve it. While the road ahead of him is difficult, filled with such challenges as the Fourth Estate’s hostility and Obama’s popularity, he has what it takes to reach his destination.

Steele, of course, is the first black person to serve as Chairman of the RNC. That shouldn’t matter. Race shouldn’t matter. Yet we must acknowledge this achievement, because it finally exorcizes the ghost of race that haunted the GOP since the 1960s.

The “Southern Strategy” is now officially dead. All the old embarrassments—Earl Butz, James Watt, Trent Lott, Chip Saltsman—don’t matter anymore. At long last, the GOP is the “party of Lincoln” again. Under Michael Steele’s leadership, we will issue a new Emancipation Proclamation, one that liberates the country from the burdens of government waste and excess.

Yesterday was a good day to be a conservative, a good day to be a Republican, but more importantly, a good day to be an American. Steele is a man of courage, a man of honor, a man of wisdom, a man of accomplishment. Now, as the head of the RNC, he is the man of the hour.

Is a willingness to give President Obama a pass a sign of conservative class?

In a recent Guardian article, center-left media critic Dan Kennedy noted the right’s divided reaction to Obama’s inaugural address. “For serious commentators like David Brooks of the New York Times and Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, it was an occasion to sit up and take notice – to acknowledge that Obama, in that post-partisan way of his, sometimes sounds as much like a conservative as a liberal,” Kennedy wrote. “And that, perhaps, he actually means what he says.”

Kennedy was less than impressed with the reactions of bloggers at Red State and Power Line, asserting that “…For the hard right, though, inauguration day was an occasion to continue bashing away at a guy who was falsely derided during the campaign as a socialist, a pal of terrorists and – if not actually a Muslim himself – someone whose background and very name suggested a proclivity to be soft on those who would fly planes into buildings.”

While most conservatives would likely challenge Kennedy’s suggestion that the contributors to Power Line and Red State are “far right,” it is beyond dispute that some conservatives are more cordial towards Obama than others. Why is that?

“Conservatives, and even some liberals, have had trouble pigeon-holing Obama since his emergence on the national scene, partly because his post-partisan politics can't easily be categorised [sic], partly because Obama's not above a little shape-shifting when it suits his needs,” noted Kennedy. “Still, he is essentially a mainstream liberal who projects a moderate, pragmatic appeal….though conservatives shouldn't get the idea that he's one of them, perhaps it is nevertheless beginning to dawn on the more rational among them that he's not George McGovern either. As Obama himself has said repeatedly, his opposition to the war in Iraq doesn't mean he's a pacifist. Rather, Obama comes across as the heir to a brand of muscular liberalism that was in vogue from Franklin Roosevelt through John Kennedy.”

Kennedy’s right that Brooks, Noonan, Michael Goldfarb and Tom Donnelly of the Weekly Standard and other give-Obama-a-chance conservatives recognize a strain of pragmatism in the 44th President. However, that’s not the only reason some on the right wish to treat Obama fairly. There are a number of conservatives who wish Obama played for the red team.

Obama, of course, is the nation’s first black President—and while the conservative movement presents itself as color-blind, race has been a thorny issue for the right since the mid-1960s. Two events—Barry Goldwater’s misguided decision to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Richard Nixon’s 1968 effort to reposition the GOP as the home of middle- and working-class white Americans (the inaccurately named “Southern Strategy”)—led to a permanent split between the Republican Party and black voters. Despite the American right’s efforts to emphasize the critical role that Republican legislators played in passing the ’64 Civil Rights Act and the ideological overlap between Republicans and black voters on social issues, the GOP has performed poorly among black voters in Presidential elections since 1964.

As the mainstream press has often noted, it is virtually impossible to find an elected black Republican in a prominent position in Washington or anywhere else in the country. The GOP’s decision to overlook black votes in favor of working- and middle-class white votes occurred just prior to the era in which future black leaders became politically aware.

Obama and other post-civil-rights-movement black leaders came of age in a time when they were told, in ways direct and subtle, that the GOP wasn’t really interested in them. Perhaps if the GOP had attempted to attract black support in those days, charismatic and gifted figures like Obama would have become conservative Republicans instead of liberal Democrats.

Perhaps the conservatives who are sympathetic to Obama see a man who, under different circumstances, could have been on the “right” side. It has been said that during his days at Harvard Law School, Obama demonstrated extraordinary open-mindedness, giving equal weight and respect to the views of liberal and conservative students. Of course, by the time Obama arrived at Harvard Law, he had come to the conclusion that progressivism was the more sensible worldview—a conclusion undoubtedly influenced by the way the GOP politically positioned itself in an earlier era. It’s not hard to imagine Noonan, Brooks, Goldfarb, Donnelly and others thinking to themselves: If our guys hadn’t alienated thoughtful people like him years ago, he’d be one of us today.

Can David Frum forge a new majority?

The veteran conservative pundit and former Bush speechwriter has launched NewMajority.com, a group blog intended to heal the wounds afflicting the ailing Republican Party and conservative movement. Just as I wish President Obama the best of luck in leading this country, I wish Frum the best of luck in leading the American right out of the wilderness.

Frum’s “Diary” blog at National Review Online has been a must-read for the past few years and, unfortunately, a target of much unfair criticism. Frum has been smeared by the talk-radio world for allegedly being a RINO or a faux-conservative, largely because he a) didn’t buy the right’s effort to position Sarah Palin as the new Queen of Conservatism and b) believed that merely recycling old lines from the Reagan ‘80s would not lead to a new era of Republican dominance.

Of course, Frum was right on both counts. If Palin was in fact the new conservative superstar she was made out to be, she would have turned out enough votes to carry John McCain to victory. Palin ultimately turned out to be the Newt Gingrich of the 2000s, a figure loved by the base and loathed by virtually everyone else.

Frum also realizes something that too many conservatives seem to ignore or downplay: the reality that it is not 1980 anymore, demographically, politically or culturally. Like Richard Nixon in 1972, Reagan scored big-time victories by attracting a large percentage of the white middle-class vote. Today, attracting the white middle-class vote is not enough to secure victory; one must appeal to an increasingly diverse America in order to go over.

Frum charted a course to victory in a recent Newsweek article, noting that the GOP must acknowledge the silent problem of middle-class wage stagnation, address social-conservative issues in ways that don’t come across as ridiculous or excessively hostile, refocus on environmental issues and reaffirm the party’s commitment to public-sector competence.

“So long as we think Barack Obama won because of a fluke—because he waltzed into an economic crisis, or because his supporters somehow mastered better election technology, or because he somehow bamboozled the American public with vague, endearing promises of change—so long as we think those things, so long will our troubles continue,” Frum correctly notes. “Barack Obama won because a majority of Americans believed he was an intelligent, levelheaded and responsible person who could solve problems they cared about. If we're to beat him—or succeed him—we're going to have to convince them that we can do the same or better.”

Will conservatives heed Frum’s message? They ought to. The online right has yet to truly grasp the magnitude of Obama’s victory; too many conservative bloggers seem to believe that Obama’s win was some sort of accident, and not the natural culmination of a decade-long shift to the center-left on the part of the American electorate. Political and cultural liberalism has gained power since the mid- to late-1990s: how else does one explain the public’s objection to President Clinton’s impeachment in 1998, the closeness of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections and the anti-GOP tide of the 2006 midterm elections?

I’ve never understood the logic of the anti-Frum vehemence in some sectors of the right. I still remember being galvanized by Frum’s book Dead Right; the book deserved a place alongside Dinesh D’Souza’s Illiberal Education and Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom’s America in Black and White as one of the best political/cultural books of the 1990s. I’ve admired Frum’s writing ever since; quite frankly, I wish he was as prominent a media presence as some of his loudest critics.

It’s dispiriting to be a conservative these days. The Democrats seemingly control everything—Washington, the mainstream press, the colleges and universities, the entertainment world. Thoughtful Republicans seem few and far between; even the Republicans I respect the most seem compelled to downplay former President Bush’s flaws while overemphasizing his achievements. I remember the energy and vigor of fifteen years ago, when Republicans drafted a Contract with America and the country agreed to sign it. I remember wanting to be Newt Gingrich. I remember the feeling that it was truly morning in America again.

Can that feeling ever be recaptured? Or is it a permanent part of the past?

David Frum believes that conservatism can come back. His new project certainly reflects his optimism. Reading NewMajority.com, I can’t help feeling a sense of hope—a sense that things will change.

Despite his clear violation of conservative principles, it appears that the American right will continue to praise George W. Bush for years to come as a courageous leader who “protected the country” and “restored honor and dignity to the White House.” In other words, the American right will intentionally peddle a fantasy as fact.

Identity politics, always in full flower on the left, has now made itself at home on the right. The only reason Bush receives a pass on his non-conservative leadership is because he is a pro-life Christian.

Ask yourself: if a secular-humanist Democrat had grown the deficit, signed into law a campaign-finance bill that gutted the First Amendment, backed a socialist bailout of the private sector, increased the federal government’s involvement in education and health care, failed to secure the border and botched the prosecution of a war for three years, would any conservative cut such a President any slack?

Isn’t the answer obvious?

There’s something perverse and sick about the American right’s continued admiration of Bush, who like his father never gave a damn about conservatism. Bush should, by all rights, be remembered as the biggest RINO to ever occupy the White House, not Mr. Valiant.

Is the pro-Bush right demented, or just ignorant? It’s hard to tell sometimes.

Presumably, conservatives vote for Republican Presidential candidates in an effort to check the spread of liberalism throughout American politics and culture. What, exactly, did Bush do to stop the penetration of progressivism? Yes, he put John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the bench, but those appointments in and of themselves aren’t enough. After eight years of Bush, do we have anything close to a culture of life in this country? Has patriotism returned to the culture, as it did during the Ronald Reagan era? If not, why?

If anything, Bush aided and abetted the growth of liberalism in this country. He conceded ideological ground to the left with No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. He bought wholesale the progressive argument in favor of open borders. He was unwilling to take a strong stand against quota-based affirmative action programs. By his own admission, he “abandoned free-market principles” last year with the Billionaire’s Bailout.

Bush’s defenders on the right still stick up for Bush because he’s one of them: a man of faith, an advocate for the rights of unborn children, a believer in the concept of American exceptionalism. That’s all well and good—but it doesn’t make him an exceptional President, and it’s wrong for conservatives to carry on as though he is.

Wrong is wrong no matter who does it. Spitting on the Constitution, as Bush did when he signed McCain-Feingold, was wrong. Violating limited-government principles, as Bush did when he backed NCLB and Medicare Part D, was wrong. Refusing to protect the country’s domestic security because of a bizarre and naive belief in open borders was wrong. Remaining loyal to foolish figures like Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales was wrong. Allowing the Democrats to score a huge propaganda victory—one that politically devastated his own party—in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was wrong.

I must question the mental health of conservatives who insist upon promoting the deviant falsehood that Bush is somehow the equal of Reagan in terms of courage, valor, temperament, etc. Reagan would be horrified by what Bush has done to his party and his movement.

I can’t join the conservative God-bless-Bush chorus. How could I? Bush was the Bernard Madoff of the Republican Party, a confidence man who scammed conservative voters and left them bankrupt. I’m supposed to say that Bush kept this country safe, when the Southern border is as vulnerable as ever? I’m supposed to say that Bush kept this county’s fiscal health strong, when he failed to rein in spending and refused to use his veto pen until well into his second term? I’m supposed to hail Bush as a wise leader, when his foolishness created the foundation upon which Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama rose to power?

Sorry, but I feel no love whatsoever for Bush. Rather, I feel used. I voted for Bush in 2000, hoping that he would be my generation’s Reagan. I voted for him again in 2004, hoping that his second term would bring some authentic conservative change to Washington and the country. What did I get? What did America get? “Well, we’ve been safe since 9/11!” Bush’s cheerleaders say. To which I respond: Not because of anything this son-of-a-Bush did. Considering how unprotected this country remains, thanks in part to Bush’s refusal to secure the border, the lack of a 9/11 follow-up is a miracle on the level of US Airways Flight 1549, as opposed to what the “Decider” did between ’01 and ’09.

God bless Bush? No thanks. I’d rather thank God that Bush is finally leaving the White House, after eight years of lifting his leg on conservative principles like a canine on a hydrant. At least his successor admits that he’s into spreading the wealth and swelling the size of government. Let’s hope that his successor is a real Republican, not a cheap, inarticulate imitation.

The argument that President Bush “kept the country safe after 9/11” has been made numerous times in conservative circles in the final days of his Presidency. That doesn’t make the argument any less absurd.

It’s fascinating that defense conservatives give the credit to Bush instead of the troops; it’s bizarre that conservatives of faith credit Bush instead of Almighty God. In truth, Bush deserves little, if any, credit for “keeping the country safe”—because the Southern border remains as porous as it was before 9/11.

In the immediate aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, Bush had all the political capital necessary to order a complete shutdown of the Southern border. No Democrat would have dared question him. The mainstream media would have been reluctant to raise a fuss. Even the immigrant-rights community would have kept silent. Yet Bush failed to act.

Seven years after 9/11, the Southern border remains at risk of being penetrated by those who wish to inflict harm upon this country. Bush bears responsibility for failing to protect the country from this risk. His unwillingness to secure the border disqualifies him from receiving legitimate credit for “keeping the country safe.”

It’s disturbing to see the American right downplay this reality as it rushes to give Bush a pat on the back for his actions as President. In fact, considering Bush’s repeated betrayal of conservative principles, it’s odd that conservatives are willing to give him anything besides a cold shoulder.

With apologies to Kanye West, George Bush didn’t care about conservatives. If he did, why would he sign the McCain-Feingold Act into law? Why would be give us No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug benefit? Why would he support the Billionaires’ Bailout of 2008? Why would he wait five-and-a-half years to use his veto pen? Why would he swell the size of government to such intolerable levels?

It’s horrifying to see certain conservatives make excuses for Bush’s errors. In a recent Weekly Standard article entitled “Bush’s Achievements,” Fred Barnes actually cites No Child Left Behind and the Medicare benefit as examples of Bush’s “achievements.” “The teachers' unions, school boards, the education establishment, conservatives adamant about local control of schools--they all loathed [NCLB] and still do,” Barnes writes. “It requires two things they ardently oppose, mandatory testing and accountability. [Ted] Kennedy later turned against NCLB, saying Bush is shortchanging the program. In truth, federal education spending is at record levels. Another complaint is that it forces teachers to ‘teach to the test.’ The tests are on math and reading. They are tests worth teaching to.”

What happened to the days when conservatives argued that the federal government should have no role in education? Is that view now considered outdated?

With regard to Medicare, Barnes asserts that “…It's not only wildly popular; it has cost less than expected by triggering competition among drug companies. Conservatives have deep reservations about the program. But they shouldn't have been surprised. Bush advocated the drug benefit in the 2000 campaign. And if he hadn't acted, Democrats would have, with a much less attractive result.”

So if the Democrats are planning to do something wrong, Republicans should beat them to it?

Barnes is a brilliant writer, and his 2006 book Rebel-in-Chief is a fascinating look at what makes Bush tick. However, it appears that Barnes, like so many conservatives who insist that history will redeem Bush, is too emotionally invested in the man to view him objectively.

Barnes and other pro-Bush conservatives still see the President as the Hero of 9/11. I still remember the valor he demonstrated in those dark days, and how he made our spirits rise after the towers fell. However, I also remember the man who sabotaged the First Amendment by signing McCain-Feingold, ushered in an era of unprecedented socialism with the bailout, cut domestic taxes while failing to reduce domestic spending, and allowed Iraq to become a near-quagmire for nearly four years. (Intellectually honest conservatives need to ask themselves: would Ronald Reagan have waited until the middle of his second term to figure out how to win a war that commenced in the middle of his first term?)

Bush is unworthy of conservative defense or praise. He is the third consecutive mediocre President we have had since Reagan left office. It’s ridiculous to argue that he has kept the country safe when the Southern border remains unsafe. It’s ridiculous to argue that he will be vindicated by history when there is a litany of evidence to the contrary.

It’s painful when a friend loses his job—even if that friend is someone you’ve never met.

For talk-radio fans in the thirty-eight states that receive the powerful signal of Boston’s CBS Radio affiliate WBZ-AM, the two most important hours of the weekend were on Saturday night between 7:00pm and 9:00pm Eastern. For most of this decade, that timeslot was occupied by an outstanding host named Pat Desmarais.

Desmarais, who had appeared on radio stations in New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts prior to his tenure at WBZ, was an intellectually vibrant host, a man unafraid to defend positions generally considered unpopular in the station’s home state. A proud Republican who was firm in his support of President Bush and the Iraq War, Desmarais accepted ideological challenges from callers with sharply differing perspectives—and emerged from almost all of these fights with his head held high.

Often, I would cringe as caller after caller went after Desmarais with ruthless aggression, attacking the alleged stupidity of his views. Desmarais stood his ground with style and a smile; he was the very definition of cool under pressure.

I called into Desmarais’ show several times between 2005 and 2008. Sometimes, I would dial the station’s number as soon as the show came on, hoping that I would be the first caller. I didn’t do this out of ego; I did this because I knew he would face a crush of criticism for his markedly conservative views, and I wanted him to know that there were a few listeners who thought his views were, well, right on.

Desmarais often filled in for the station’s weekday hosts, and he always delivered a strong performance. Just a few weeks ago, he substituted for WBZ’s talk-radio MVP, Dan Rea, and put on a show that maintained Rea’s high standards. (Would that some of Rush Limbaugh’s fill-ins did the same honor for him!)

I hoped that Desmarais would have a bright future at WBZ. Unfortunately, the cloudy economy deferred that dream.

At the end of December, Desmarais was laid off along with fellow Saturday-night host Lovell Dyett; Steve LeVeille, who hosted weeknights from midnight to 5:00am Eastern, was also let go. CBS Radio is obviously feeling the acute pain of the slowing economy, and it was determined that Desmarais, Dyett and LeVeille had to be released to alleviate the hurt the company is suffering. (CBS Radio also released veteran hosts in other markets, a sign of the company’s tough economic situation.)

The decision to release Dyett and LeVeille has sparked outrage; civil-rights activists in Boston are crying foul about Dyett’s departure (Dyett was one of Boston’s most visible black media figures for decades), and LeVeille’s fans have flooded message boards and e-mail in-boxes with complaints about his layoff. Yet Desmarais’ departure doesn’t seem to have generated similar outrage. Why?

I’m not outraged by Desmarais’ ouster. I understand that CBS Radio is battling grim economic conditions. Yet I can’t help feeling heartbroken and disappointed. Having worked for WBZ a decade ago, I know that the station’s managers are trying to do the best they can under difficult circumstances. They do not deserve the harsh condemnation they are receiving from the fans of LeVeille and Dyett.

I just wish the health of the radio business had remained strong, so that talented men like Desmarais, LeVeille and Dyett would still have a chance to ply their trade at the station. Perhaps LeVeille and Dyett will have the opportunity to appear in another news/talk venue in the future. Desmarais should also have such an opportunity.

I’d bet the bank that even the folks who despised Desmarais during his tenure at WBZ wish he was back on the air now. Desmarais treated all callers with respect, even the ones who thought he was a right-wing troglodyte. Like Rea, Desmarais was humble in a medium that seems to reward hubris. Every second of his time on WBZ’s airwaves was filled to capacity with class.

I’m pessimistic about a lot of things these days—whether our country is still as strong as it was in earlier generations, whether the popular culture will ever value anything besides ignorance and shock value, whether the Republican Party will ever get its act together. However, I have to be optimistic about the future health of the economy and, specifically, the future health of the radio business—because such optimism is the only way I’ll ever have a chance to hear Pat Desmarais’ wonderful voice again.

I’m afraid I must disagree with the great conservative writer Larry Elder, whose January 1 column (“Barack the Magic Negro-gate”) on the controversy surrounding would-be Republican National Committee chairman Chip Saltsman misses the point about why Saltsman’s actions were so misguided.

Elder correctly notes that it was a black liberal writer, David Ehrenstein, who originally started the “Magic Negro” controversy with a March 2007 Los Angeles Times piece attacking Obama as a candidate whose hopes for victory depended upon exploiting white guilt.

“The article produced virtually no outcry,” Elder writes. “Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh then aired a [Paul Shanklin] song parody—set to the music of ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’—called ‘Barack the Magic Negro.’ Referring to the L.A. Times article, an Al Sharpton-like ‘singer’ called Obama inauthentically black. Why, complained the singer, should white folks vote for Obama rather than a true black man ‘from the hood’ like— me.”

Elder continues, “Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent the song on a CD with 40 other songs, in a Christmas mailer to committee members. Doesn't the mailer, asked several cable news programs, expose the Republicans—yet again—for their tone deafness on the issue of race?…Never mind the parody actually satirized Al Sharpton. The song implies that Sharpton hoped against an Obama victory, for it crushes Sharpton's argument about America's alleged institutional racism, a force so potent in a country so racist that Obama could not win. An Obama win threatens to reduce the significance of Sharpton-like black leaders. And never mind a black liberal—who started the whole thing—called Obama a ‘Negro.’

“When will the GOP—on the issue of race—go on the offense?”

The answer: Never, because it can’t.

Elder correctly notes that the Democrat Party has a long history of discrimination against blacks. The harsh political reality, however, is that this history does not matter, because the Democrat Party today is not commonly perceived as an antiblack party. The Republican Party, fairly or not, is commonly perceived today as a lily-white party with a handful of “token” nonwhite members. Because of this perception, Republicans have to be very careful about the appearance of racial impropriety. It may not be fair, but it’s a fact.

“But what about the infamous Republican Southern strategy?” Elder writes. “The co-author of the strategy, Pat Buchanan, wrote in 2002: Richard Nixon kicked off his historic comeback in 1966 with a column on the South (by this writer) that declared we would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the [Democratic] 'party of Maddox and Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'"

The “Southern Strategy” Elder and Buchanan make reference to is actually misnamed, because it really didn’t have anything to do with the South. Nixon’s actual strategy was to turn out as much of the white middle-class vote as possible, regardless of region. This was not done because of racism, but because of business. Nixon and his advisors figured that, in 1968, middle-class whites were the political and cultural majority, and thus it made sense to gear the Republican Party to their interests and desires. It’s similar to how Hollywood studios today gear most of their films to teenage boys.

This strategy paid off for Nixon, as well as for Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. This strategy was not intentionally designed to alienate nonwhites, contrary to the allegations of the left. Republican strategists had no problem accepting votes from blacks, Hispanics and Asians who had issues with the Democrats. However, the GOP’s primary interest was in hunting where the ducks were.

It’s not an accident that the 2008 Republican National Convention had so little racial diversity. It’s also not an accident that, as Justice Clarence Thomas recounts on page 179 of his 2007 autobiography My Grandfather’s Son, he was “met with near-total indifference” when he offered to help Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign: “One political consultant was honest enough to tell me straight out that since the President's reelection strategy didn't include the black vote, there was no role for me." The GOP is not anti-minority in any way, but its “business model” clearly depends on maximizing white middle-class turnout. Would Nixon and Reagan have won landslides if they didn’t primarily appeal to middle-class whites?

This “business model” is now defective for many reasons, such as the country’s changing demographics and the apparent increase in the number of middle-class whites who either disagree with Republican policies or accept wholesale the anti-GOP messages of the mainstream press and the popular culture. However, the GOP is still identified in the public mind with this “business model”—which is why Saltsman’s behavior was so stupid.

Because the GOP has been so dependent on the votes of middle-class whites, the mainstream press has long sought to depict the GOP as an entity that appeals to the baser instincts of middle-class whites, as opposed to the higher values of this group. Whenever Republicans are involved in race-related controversies, even silly ones, the Fourth Estate exploits these incidents in order to “prove” that the GOP is fundamentally racist. Thus, Republicans must be careful about not giving the mainstream media the tools with which to bash the party.

Saltsman exhibited no such caution. That’s why he’s a fool. Black Republicans like Elder and Ken Blackwell can yell “Double Standard!” and “Hypersensitivity!” until they’re blue in the face: it still won’t change reality. Even if one believes that the parody itself wasn’t bigoted (if one understands the backstory of the song, it doesn’t come across as bigoted, but a listener who is unfamiliar with the backstory will naturally think the song is some sort of crude Amos ‘n’ Andy-style racial parody), Saltsman’s decision to distribute the song was ill-advised.

“Today it's Democrats [and the media] who blatantly use the race card to malign Republicans as a collection of bigots,” Elder complains. He’s right—but that doesn’t make Saltsman any less of a joker.

Can conservatives actually conserve this country?

This has been a miserable year for the American right, with the deaths of several major conservative figures and John McCain’s humiliating loss last month. The optimist in me wants to believe that conservatism still has a future in America. The pessimist in me says that’s naïve—and the pessimist’s voice is far louder.

2008 will be remembered as the year that the left mastered the ability to control the public debate. The left’s success at convincing large numbers of Americans that President Clinton did not deserve to be forced from office in 1998 was “impressive” in its own right, but it’s nothing compared to what progressives pulled off this year. Through effective marketing, old-school propaganda, and the “aid” of President Bush’s incompetence, the left convinced a majority of Americans to support the candidacy of a one-term Senator from a corruption-contaminated state.

The conservative movement simply does not have the ability to counteract the left’s noise machine. This is, in part, why the last two federal elections went so poorly for the GOP.

It seems that conservatives have yet to fully grasp the magnitude of the problem facing the right. There is still an assumption within conservative circles that Barack Obama’s victory was some sort of fluke, and that it will only be a matter of time before the electorate goes back to its “natural” Republican-voting pattern. This belief is profoundly foolish.

It’s not that Republicans will never win another Presidential or midterm election again; it’s that such victories will likely be rare unless the right figures out ways to effectively counteract the left’s advantages in terms of getting out messages to the electorate. Unfortunately, it appears that with few exceptions, conservatives seem to have little real interest in coming up with such methods.

The smugness that contributed to the GOP’s recent losses is still too plentiful on the right. Too many conservatives have come to the casual conclusion that Obama will fail like President Carter before him, and that voters will come running back to the Republicans to fix Obama’s mess. What if Obama doesn’t fail? What if he governs effectively as President? Let’s not forget that many Americans were comfortable with Clinton despite his clear lack of character because he was seen as a competent leader (at least after the 1994 midterms, that is).

The combination of a competent Obama and an “out-of-touch” right could be fatal for conservatism in this country. For years, Americans have been bombarded with messages from the schools, the popular culture, and the mainstream media depicting Republicans as consummately evil. These messages were unfortunately reinforced by the admittedly odd behavior of Bush and Congressional Republicans during the course of the 2000s. The populace supported Obama in part because they had been led to believe that the word “Republican” is a synonym for “incompetent hack.” If Obama governs as the opposite of an “incompetent hack,” and the right fails to establish ways to effectively communicate alternatives to Obama’s ideas, both the Republican Party and the conservative movement will be all but finished in this country within twenty-five years.

Perhaps this is inevitable. After all, if nothing lasts forever, then why would the conservative movement be an exception? It’s hard to look at the devastating losses conservatives have sustained over the past few years (and pseudo-victories like the gay-marriage ban in California, one that was brought about by nonwhite voters who hate Republicans just as much as they hate the concept of two dudes or two gals marrying) without wondering whether these victories are a signal of the right’s ultimate political defeat. Stripped to its essence, conservatism as a philosophy was always going to be a hard sell politically: by definition, a philosophy built around encouraging people to be dependent upon themselves instead of the government would have a limited number of takers. The conservative movement reached its peak when large numbers of Americans became disgusted with things the Democrat Party seemed to stand for—abortion on demand, forced busing, lenient approaches to urban crime, etc. However, these ”anti-Democrat” Americans never really became full-fledged conservatives; many went on to support the pseudo-moderate Clinton in the 1990s. Earlier this decade, it appeared that the War on Terror would make these Americans “anti-Democrat” again; unfortunately, after 2004, these Americans became hardcore “anti-Republican” in their thinking, thanks to the Molotov-cocktail combination of mainstream media bias and Bush’s second-term political schizophrenia.

The notion that the conservative movement might be destined to die will naturally horrify some conservatives. “The hell it is,” they’ll say. “We’ll never stop fighting! The last thing we want is for our children to grow up in a liberal, morally-relativistic culture!” Of course, the problem is, their children are already growing up in that culture.

Just a few more days before we see the end
Of a thoroughly worthless year, my friends.
‘Twas a year filled with sadness, heartbreak and drama
For everyone in this country—except Barack Obama.

He seemed to succeed where everyone else failed.
They say he’s historic—the first Prez who isn't pale!
To me, he’s just another Democrat politician—
But when it came to getting votes, he was certainly a magician.

Obama just seemed to have the magic touch—
Even though the media worship was a little too much.
The Fourth Estate said he was the second coming of JFK,
The new hero of Cambridge and San Francisco Bay.

He took on and conquered the Clinton Machine,
Sending Bill and Hillary to the political latrine.
He angered Geraldine Ferraro and broke feminists’ hearts
With his tremendous charisma and political smarts.

Then he went to Berlin for a political rally
Even though Germany didn’t count in our vote tally.
He charmed so many European boys and girls
By declaring himself a “citizen of the world.”

Then he returned to America and prepared for the fall.
Have you ever seen such a nasty political brawl?
The right’s efforts to defeat him were ultimately in vain,
As on November 4 he defeated John McCain.

Ah, what can we say about the hero of Vietnam?
His campaign kicked the bucket, bit the dust, bought the farm.
To many Americans, his campaign was a crime,
Surpassing Bob Dole’s as the worst Presidential bid of all-time.

Take away Sarah Palin, and it would’ve been a worse defeat:
Obama would have slaughtered McCain like Nightmare on Elm Street
Or Saw or any other horror film filled with violence;
Only Palin kept McCain from absolute political silence.

In a way, Palin sacrificed herself for McCain.
The mainstream media called her idiotic and insane,
A right-wing female dog that couldn’t help Alaska survive.
When it came to nasty rhetoric, they buried her alive.

What the press did to Palin was putrid and rotten: it stinks!
They wrote “IDIOT” upon her forehead with indelible ink
And declared that she’d never be fit for White House residency.
Now it’s impossible to envision a Palin Presidency.

The press covered for Joe Biden and praised his every move.
They acted like he was a genius, with a manner calm and smooth.
Why didn’t the press look at Biden and yell “Beware!”
While reminding us what he once said about immigrants in Delaware?

The MSM’s bias was off the charts this year.
But it wasn’t the only reason conservatives cried in their beer.
Unless the GOP repairs the damage to its crown,
The Republican Party could find itself permanently down.

We’ve lost almost all of the black vote. We’re also losing Hispanics.
Our dwindling support among young voters should send us into a panic!
So many Americans now see us as crashing bores,
The party of moral hypocrisy, incompetence and endless war.

How can we respond to these depressing facts?
Can we broaden our appeal while keeping our conservative principles intact?
It’s depressing to see how we’ve gotten on the wrong track.
Let’s face it, folks: Reagan is gone. He ain’t never coming back.

At least we have strong horses ready to burst out of the stall—
Mike Pence, Eric Cantor, Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal.
These figures are the GOP’s next generation:
Only they can bring an end to the party’s consternation.

These four are intelligent and articulate enough to explain
The conservative solution to our economic pain.
They understand the hurt average Americans feel.
They’re the doctors who can help our injured country heal.

We must turn to these four to fill the void
Left by the giants who made liberals paranoid
While also making conservatism vibrant, wise and strong.
This year, we shed our tears, knelt our heads and said so long

To William F. Buckley Jr., Paul Weyrich and Tony Snow.
Dean Barnett, Jesse Helms and Charlton Heston also had to go.
Like Hollywood legends from days long past,
These men had an influence that’s likely to last.

Although he was a Democrat, conservatives were also distressed
By the passing of Tim Russert, the great host of Meet the Press.
Although some MSM figures are often tough to take,
Russert was respected for giving everyone a fair shake.

It was a rough, brutal, bad and disappointing year.
He’re hoping that December 31 brings some good cheer
And a 2009 with less calamity and strife.
That’s all I have to say. Peace out! Word life!

As if 2008 hasn’t been depressing enough, now comes word that Bobby Jindal doesn’t plan to run for the Republican nomination in 2012. God help us.

The Louisiana Governor seems to be the man best prepared to exploit Barack Obama’s weaknesses and mistakes on the way to recapturing the White House for the GOP. He has excelled as the leader of Louisiana, and has captured the imagination of millions of Republicans with his intelligence and commitment to conservative principles.

Why wouldn’t Jindal want to run? It would be understandable if Obama turned out to be a strong President in four years, but if Obama becomes Jimmy Carter’s clone, Jindal would defeat him without breaking a sweat. He has no symbolic connection to the failed Bush administration, and has no personality flaws that would allow the mainstream press to demonize him.

Republicans are holding out for a hero. Although there have been rumors of a Mitt Romney run in 2012, Romney would likely bump his head against the same “glass ceiling” that kept him below the 2008 GOP nomination. Sarah Palin is certainly a conservative icon, but removing the negative image imposed upon Palin by the mainstream press is a Sisyphean task.

Jindal has the personality, the smarts and the skills to become the 45th President. Why is he unwilling at this point to get into the game?

Against a weakened Obama, it’s difficult to imagine Jindal losing. What could the press and the Democrats do to him? No one will buy the argument that he’s a religious extremist: they can spread the “exorcism story” from sunup until sundown, and average Americans disillusioned with Obama will still consider Jindal a suitable alternative to the incumbent. They can try to suggest he’s another Bush, but Jindal is far more articulate and far less aloof than the 43rd President.

Jindal is the American right’s only hope. He’s talented enough to win and, more importantly, intelligent enough to govern. The last Republican President to govern with any effectiveness was Ronald Reagan: both Bushes furthered the image of Republicans as folks who know how to get elected, but don’t know what to do once they step into the White House. Jindal can once again make “Republican Presidential governance” something other than an oxymoron.

As a candidate, Jindal would bring youth and vibrancy to the GOP, something that’s currently in short supply. Today, the Republican Party has a dated, 1950s-rerun image that alienates many voters under the age of 45. To those born in the mid-1960s and later, the GOP is the ultimate assisted living community, an unpleasant building reeking of Quaker Oats and prune juice. Put Jindal on the ticket, and immediately the GOP becomes fresh, lively, jazzy, cool. Jindal has the ability to make the party hip, as opposed to being a party in need of a hip replacement.

As Bill Bennett often notes on his radio show, culture is more important than politics. Jindal understands the culture, and he can exploit the culture in a way most Republicans can’t. (Don’t dismiss the importance of exploiting the culture: both Bill Clinton and Obama took advantage of the culture in order to become President.) Jindal represents the new America: multicultural, highly-educated, technologically gifted, wise about the world. Yet he also represents the old America, the traditions and principles that made the United States an exceptional country. He respects the values of your grandparents, but he won’t alienate your grandchildren.

Barack Obama became President in part because he is the Will Smith of American politics—a capable, charismatic performer who transcends all social boundaries with his appeal. However, four years from now Obama might not be able to sell many tickets at the box office. The industry will need a new star, someone who can attract audiences of all ages and backgrounds. In Jindal, the GOP doesn’t just have a potential star—it has a superstar in the making.

Will Jindal reconsider? Let’s hope so. He’s too talented to let this opportunity pass. If Obama fails to deliver as President, the American people will look for a suitable replacement. Jindal is more than suitable. He wouldn’t need gimmicks like “Joe the Plumber” to point out the flaws in Obama’s economic vision; “Bobby the Governor” would convince Americans all on his own.

Hopefully, Jindal will do the right thing and run in 2012—and hopefully, the GOP will do the right thing and nominate him for President. If voters demand a change from “Change,” Jindal must be the alternative—any other choice is deranged.

How do you sell conservatism to a population that doesn’t want to buy it?

As the American right tries to figure out a way through the wilderness, it would help if conservatives looked at how to effectively promote conservative ideas. Convincing Americans of the correctness of conservatism is an inherently difficult task, because of what conservatism fundamentally stands for.

Modern American conservatism is about preserving tradition. It is not about freedom, although Ronald Reagan certainly communicated a freedom-based vision of conservatism during his 1980 Presidential campaign. Conservatism, by definition, cannot stand for certain forms of freedom: for example, it cannot stand for the freedom of a woman to terminate a pregnancy, as this would violate the traditionalist belief in an unborn child’s right to live, and it cannot stand for the freedom of a gay person to marry his or her partner, as this would violate the traditionalist belief in marriage as the union of one guy and one girl.

Thus, conservatism is inherently exclusive. Certain people will never be “members in good standing” at the conservative club. In order for conservatism to be effective, it must turn away some people at the door.

The problem is that thanks in part to current political culture, there are fewer and fewer people who want to move into the conservative community. Voters who are currently eighteen to twenty-nine years of age reject conservatism because of the philosophy’s perceived hard-heartedness on social issues. African-Americans dislike conservatism because of the perceived indifference of the late William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater to civil rights. Hispanics are drifting away from conservatism because of the perceived harshness of the right’s rhetoric on immigration.

Selling conservatism to the masses is further complicated by the inept pseudo-leadership of outgoing President George W. Bush. Even though Bush governed as a Lyndon Johnson imitator, Bush is identified in the public mind with conservatism. We cannot blame the mainstream press entirely for this: the entirety of the American conservative establishment supported Bush in 2000 and 2004, only to pay for their support in 2008.

There’s no easy solution. Barack Obama won the Presidency in part because of the left’s successful effort at institutionalizing anti-conservative, anti-Republican sentiment in the populace. As Power Line blogger John Hinderaker wrote in a November 7 post,
“…[C]ultural forces push the Democrats forward relentlessly, except for occasions when their policies have clearly and undeniably failed. By ‘cultural forces’ I mean the Democrats' monopoly or near-monopoly over newspapers, news agencies, network television, the universities and public schools, Hollywood, women's television and magazines, late-night comedy, the music industry, and so forth…Republicans are in trouble unless one of two things happens: either the Obama administration turns out to be a disaster that cannot be spun, like the Carter administration, which is not something we can hope for, let alone count on, or Republicans find a way to become more competitive in the culture.”

So how do we become more competitive? How do we “reprogram” those whose minds have been made deeply hostile to conservatism? Do we wait for Obama to fail? What if he doesn’t? At this point, the President-elect seems to be imitating Bill Clinton—a politically effective, if throughly corrupt, Democrat. If Clinton had kept his pants on his legs and his hands off the ladies’ thighs, Al Gore would have wiped the mat with George W. Bush in 2000, because so many Americans had come to accept Clinton's quasi-centrist leadership in the late-1990s.

Is there a dawn beyond the darkness for the conservative movement and the Republican Party? Yes—but it will require numerous changes. We need new voices—those who can express conservative views without the rhetorical stridency often found on talk radio and in certain sections of the blogosphere. We need fresh faces who can represent a conservative vision that is firm but not obnoxious. We don’t need to “moderate” our message, but we must make sure it sounds sensible to those who aren’t already on our side. We need more Tony Snows and fewer Michael Savages.

“…[T]he data suggest that many voters are open to conservative ideas,” Hinderaker wrote. “But they need to hear them applied to Republican policies in ways that are neither the target of a smear nor the punch line of a joke. If Republicans can't make inroads into the culture, the Democrats will continue to ride the up escalator.” Institutionalized anti-conservatism is a hard wall to knock down—but like the Berlin Wall, there’s a chance, however slim, for it to topple.

Where were you when Bill Clinton was impeached?

I can still remember how elated I was on the afternoon of December 19, 1998, when the House of Representatives charged the 42nd President with perjury and obstruction of justice for his actions in the Monica Lewinsky scandal; I actually e-mailed a friend after Clinton’s post-impeachment Rose Garden rally with the message, “He’s been impeached, he’s been impeached, thank God Almighty, he’s been impeached!”

Clinton’s impeachment was a moment of emotional glory for conservatives and Republicans, who had seen the President get away with all sorts of nonsense for nearly six years. Those of us who regarded Clinton as fundamentally immoral hoped that the US Senate would do the right thing in the impeachment trial.

Unfortunately, the Senate did the wrong thing, acquitting Clinton despite his obvious guilt two months later. Clinton’s acquittal was a miscarriage of justice—a miscarriage of justice supported by two-thirds of the American public, a harbinger of the country’s later anti-Republican turn in the mid- to late-2000s.

It’s been argued recently that the anti-GOP sentiment that led to Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain was spurred by such controversies as the Iraq War and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Looking back, however, it’s clear that the country began buying into the left’s anti-GOP arguments in 1998, not 2005.

From the moment the Lewinsky scandal broke, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream press argued that the whole controversy was merely about sex, and that hypocritical Republicans were exploiting the matter in an attempt to overturn the result of a Presidential election. It was an argument that too many Americans found reasonable.

I still remember how shocked I was when poll after poll indicated that a majority of Americans did not want Clinton to be impeached and removed from office. In fact, I was horrified. Why couldn’t Americans see Clinton’s obvious criminality? Why did they want this disgrace to stay in office?

The answer soon became obvious: so long as the economy was doing well, and so long as the average American’s standard of living was good, it did not matter if the Commander-in-Chief was a moral thief. People were generally happy and satisfied, and they did not want some pesky little thing like traditional morality interfering with their lives.

After Clinton’s acquittal, Paul Weyrich declared in an open letter to his allies that the conservative movement had lost the culture war. He did not realize how right he was at the time. Since then, the American right has sustained more and more culture-war losses—some of those losses due to Republican actions! (Certain culture-war wins will likely be nullified by future Supreme Court rulings.)

The public’s failure to support impeachment was the first major indication that an effectively crafted liberal argument could gain broad acceptance among average Americans. The left repeated the “It’s all about sex” line so often that even some Republicans began to believe it.

I remember loathing Al Gore at the Rose Garden rally for saying that Clinton “…will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents.” As the closeness of the 2000 election showed, not everyone shared my contempt. The Bush-Gore contest was so close because so many Americans bought into the left-wing notion that Bush was controlled by the allegedly nefarious forces behind Clinton’s impeachment. From a certain perspective, both of Bush’s wins were flukes: take away 9/11 and same-sex marriage, and it’s unlikely that Bush would have survived the left’s media onslaught in 2004.

“I no longer believe that there is a moral majority,” Weyrich wrote in that famous open letter. “I do not believe that a majority of Americans actually shares our values.” Sadly, he was right. A majority of Americans did not want Clinton to be removed from office even though he clearly deserved to be thrown out. Later, a majority of Americans would give a thumbs-down to the Republican Party’s efforts to save the life of Terri Schiavo, and to Bush’s efforts to introduce democracy to Iraq. The left has been remarkably effective at turning average Americans against all things “right-wing.” Obama could not have been elected unless a majority of Americans had become radicalized against conservatism and the GOP.

That radicalization first started ten years ago. The left injected the “It’s all about sex” argument into the American body, and the country’s immune system did not reject it as dangerous and foreign. Today, when conservatives say “traditional values,” the country hears “right-wing hate.” It’s a sad state of affairs—and for conservatives, it’s really hard to swallow.

Where has all the good talk radio gone?

Conservative talk radio has been on the ropes the past few years. While it still draws many advertisers and listeners, its influence has seemingly waned. Major conservative talk hosts spent hours making the case for keeping the House and Senate in Republican hands in 2006: their efforts didn’t…exactly…work. Then, in 2008, America’s most prominent talkers made clear their disdain for John McCain, only to see Mr. Maverick seize the GOP nomination. Then, the nation’s conservative voices made a solid case against Barack Obama—only to see the Illinois Senator pound McCain into the ground on November 4.

Has talk radio lost its mojo? Has it become too predictable, too reliant on catchphrases and corny arguments? Has it ceased to be a major factor in listeners’ lives?

If the answer is “yes”, the solution for the country’s major talkers might be to emulate the most underrated nationally syndicated talk host in the US: William J. Bennett, the host of Salem Radio Network’s Morning in America.

Bennett, the popular author, former Secretary of Education and former US drug czar, has hosted Morning in America for nearly five years. He has an unusually compelling voice, a tone that connotes wisdom, experience, reason. He is not a hothead, a self-promoter, a showman; he is a conveyor of knowledge, an educator, an interpreter of the world. It’s odd that he goes head-to-head with Don Imus in so many markets: while Imus’ show is for those with no taste, Bennett’s show is for those with discriminating taste.

For years, the mainstream media stereotyped Bennett as a “moral scold.” That was a false, sick allegation, a shameless attempt at ideological blacklisting. While I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with Bennett, there is not a hint of “intolerance” to his conservatism. If anything, Bennett is less of a “scold” than he is a compassionate father figure, a man who simply hopes that his fellow citizens make the right decisions and do the right thing.

What makes Bennett’s show so compelling to listen to is the knowledge that, had circumstances been different, this man could have been the President of the United States. Listening to Bennett speak is like listening to Newt Gingrich speak: you just know you’re dealing with someone who has an intellectual foundation for his principles, a foundation that cannot be destroyed by less-sharp critics.

Besides being informative, Bennett’s show is also fun to listen to. Some conservative talkers can be, well, savagely downbeat: Bennett, however, has a joyful spirit, one that is shared by co-producers Seth Leibsohn and Lloyd Lyles. The interactions between Bennett and Leibsohn in particular are an absolute delight to listen to.

One wishes Bennett was the public face of conservatism these days. Yes, he’s an “older white guy”, but his spirit is young. Like the late Tony Snow, Bennett always comes across as a man who believes that America has had many great days in the past, but still has a surplus of great days in the future. That’s a message Americans need to hear, now more than ever.

As Bennett noted in an April 29, 2004 Boston Globe profile of his show, "Culture is more important than politics...We're very interested in what's being shown in movies and taught in classrooms. We don't do a lot of numbers, we do a lot of ideas. In the end, what people think and believe, their music and poetry, and their family life will serve this country better than who is in the White House."

I could be really partisan and say that Bennett will serve this country better than the person who will occupy the White House on January 20, but that would betray the optimistic spirit of Bennett’s enjoyable show. To quote another famous nationally syndicated talker, William Bennett is a “great American”, and one who hosts a great morning show. A decade and a half ago, Bennett wrote The Book of Virtues. The virtues of Morning in America could fill a book of its own.

I’ve never understood why liberals thought of conservatives as religious fundamentalists.

Yes, there are some conservatives who are led to their views by their strong religious beliefs. Yet there are other conservatives who reject liberalism not because of their feelings about faith, but because conservatism simply makes more sense to them than liberalism. These conservatives believe that logic and reason will lead the average person to veto the Obama-Kennedy vision.

John Derbyshire, the fiercely brilliant National Review writer, is a member of the latter group. He has started an already-outstanding blog, www.SecularRight.org, that reflects the views of this faction of the right.

Derbyshire and his wise contributors, Manhattan Institute writers Heather Mac Donald and Walter Olson, are off to a tremendous start, taking a critical look at such issues as Kathleen Parker’s recent criticism of social conservatives, Dinesh D’Souza’s disagreements with atheists, the various ideological splits on the right and the so-called “Republican War on Science.”

Secular Right will surely become one of the most controversial websites of 2009: anyone familiar with Derbyshire’s history will know why his site will inevitably join Power Line and The Corner on National Review Online as one of the country’s most widely read political blogs. Derbyshire is a true independent spirit, a man who is not afraid to criticize the conservative movement when it veers off-track into non-logic. He attacked President Bush early and often when Bush deviated from conservative principles. He is seemingly allergic to Republican talking points: his rhetorical feuds with his more politically conventional compatriots at The Corner are legendary.

Derbyshire is no milquetoast, and his most strident critics have accused him of bigotry, homophobia and other social sins. There are times when I radically disagree with Derbyshire. There are also times when he says things that pass a common-sense test with flying colors, and his posts on Secular Right are a collection of such moments.

Mac Donald, a regular contributor to the New York Post and New York Daily News op-ed pages (among other venues), is the closest thing conservatives have to a national treasure. Mac Donald cuts through political correctness like a tornado through a Midwestern field, attacking left-wing shibboleths about immigration, crime, race relations and welfare with breathtaking force and skill. The left hates Mac Donald with an urgent passion: were I on the left, I’d hate her too, since she has been so effective at destroying the pretenses of progressives. (If you’ve never read her work, you’ve missed out on a lot. Imagine Thomas Sowell as a white woman, and you get a good idea of how great she is.)

Olson, the founder of www.overlawyered.com and a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times op-ed pages, is also an intellectual titan and one of the unsung heroes of the American right. The author of such books as The Litigation Explosion and The Excuse Factory, Olson has done America a true public service by casting the brightest spotlight possible upon the abuses and aberrations of the American legal system. Were it not for Olson’s fine work, the injustices that take place in the name of justice would remain undiscovered.

Derbyshire, Mac Donald and Olson are an intellectual stimulus package for the American conservative movement. As you can probably tell these days, the right is nearly comatose, desperately in need of a treatment that will restore it to consciousness. I trust these doctors to figure out what’s wrong with the patient.

Don’t be turned off by the website’s name. There are plenty of Americans who consider themselves secular conservatives; in fact, many prominent figures in the conservative movement would fall under this definition. Derbyshire, Mac Donald and Olson may not share all of the views held by social conservatives, but they agree with social conservatives that liberalism is far from the wisest direction for American politics to take.

I’ve placed Secular Right in my list of favorites, and I look forward to reading the thoughts of Derbyshire, Mac Donald and Olson concerning the Obama Administration and the future of the American right. This terrific triumvirate has the talents necessary to steer the conservative movement through this very dark period. In fact, these three are so good, you might even say they’re blessed.

Is there anything worse than having to discuss politics with your relatives over Thanksgiving dinner?

There are times when I actually think death is preferable to having to do the McLaughlin Group thing with the folks on this particular holiday. I’d rather just eat and let the turkey put me to sleep. But it never goes that way.

One wishes for a federal law—or, at the very least, a mute button—that could stop families from getting into political fights over the holidays. Red vs. blue debates fueled by cranberry sauce and stuffing are little more than verbal jousts where half-wits pretend to be geniuses.

One wants to be nice to one’s relatives, even if one thinks those relatives have filled their heads with partisan talking points as opposed to rational arguments. Yet how can one be nice when one is being informed by those relatives that everyone who doesn’t agree with them is a moron?

I imagine the political discussions will be worse this year than they were in previous years, what with the intensity of the Obama-McCain race. I’m sure Obama supporters will not hesitate to rub as much salt in the wounds of McCain-supporting relatives as possible. What do you do if you voted for McCain and are confronted by a family member who thinks you’re deranged for doing so? Sheepishly apologize for your “wrongheaded” vote? Politely disagree with their view of McCain? Tell them to go to hell?

There is an inherent cruelty in brining up politics on a day when we’re supposed to give thanks for our blessings. People are usually thinking about eating, not elections. Ideally, people would talk about their work and their kids, and leave the nasty stuff alone.

Yet the nasty stuff always comes up—and it always ruins this holiday. Can’t people leave it alone for just one day?

Because of the current economic conditions, Bush-loathing family members will surely not hesitate to dump on Dubya for his perceived role in the Wall Street meltdown. If you voted for Bush, you’re probably better off just trying to block the upcoming rant out. If they go after you personally for supporting Bush, just tell the offending party that his or her outfit looks nice.

You can already hear what your liberal relatives will say this Thursday. McCain will be called a racist, Sarah Palin will be called trailer trash, Bush will be called everything he’s been called for the past eight years, the GOP will be compared to the Gestapo…

It’s remarkable that more Thanksgiving dinners don’t erupt into full-scale food fights, with impassioned Republicans and Democrats scalding each other with sauce and pummeling each other with pie. We take politics very seriously in this country, and if someone—especially a family member—insults our political views, we’re ready to go to war.

A nation of enemies will share a table this Thursday. These enemies will try their best to keep their hatreds from reaching the surface, but it will take enormous effort. Dealing with relatives who loathe one’s political views stretches one’s tolerance to its breaking point. Hopefully no one will snap.

It is worse now than it was before? Thanksgiving discussions with differently-winged relatives during the Nixon ‘70s and the Reagan ‘80s obviously must have been tough on the nerves. However, because of the rigid ideological segregation in today’s America, it’s far more difficult now to deal with the stress stirred up by strident statements.

Perhaps humor can ease the tension. Then again, perhaps not: those who voted for Obama are in no mood to hear any jokes about the man. Perhaps giving loudmouthed partisan relatives the silent treatment will work: after a while, they’ll get the point, won’t they?

Isn’t it a shame that we actually have to figure out strategies to deal with Thanksgiving’s talk tyranny? What happened to the good old days when relatives would simply show up to eat—or, if they were really politically obnoxious, not show up at all?

Despite the enormous problems we’ve experienced this year, we still have much to be thankful for. We still live in the greatest country in the world. We still have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It’s too bad that political discussions on Thanksgiving Day interfere with the holiday’s real purpose. This Thursday should be a day to express appreciation for our treasures—not a day for politically quarrelsome families to act like turkeys.

This is where it all begins again.

Dark as it may seem right now, the conservative movement has a future. The leaders are there. The opportunity for them to lead will come soon.

Yes, Barack Obama won—but he beat us at our lowest moment, not at our highest point. We were an exhausted entity, a tired enterprise, a broken machine in desperate and severe need of repair. It’s time for us to make those repairs, and come back stronger and better than ever.

Now, with growing evidence that Obama will govern as a doctrinaire, standard-operating-procedure Democrat, it’s clear that we must get our act together. Soon, America will demand change from the “change.” America will demand real reform and real results. America will demand a new conservatism for a new era.

Some conservatives say that all we have to do is go back to the old ways, the old methods, the old arguments, the old traditions, in order to defeat Obama and his agenda. Those conservatives are deeply, grotesquely wrong.

Obama’s agenda will not be defeated by the old strategies and plans; after all, the old strategies and plans could not stop him on November 4. New language, new battle plans, and new methods must be used to take the fight to Obama. New warriors must fight this new opponent.

We can’t use twentieth-century strategies to fight a twenty-first-century President. Going back to 1983-era conservatism won’t cut it: after all, we wouldn’t use 1983-era medicine to combat a 2008 disease, would we?

Conservatives will look at the new leaders and choose a favorite. Some will choose Sarah Palin. Some will choose Michael Steele. Some will choose Tim Pawlenty. Some will choose Eric Cantor. Some will choose Mike Pence. Some will choose Bobby Jindal. They will find different icons, but these icons will all share the same goal: returning conservatism to a position of prominence in American life.

Conservatism is hurting right now. Millions of Americans have been radicalized against the concepts of limited government, lower taxes, a strong national defense and providing protection to unborn children. Our new leaders face a daunting challenge: convincing Americans that the left is truly not right.

The new leaders see reality. They know that America is not, at this moment, a center-right nation. They also know that, with effort and intellect, America can once again be encouraged to accept the conservative vision.

We will never have another Ronald Reagan. Yet we do have people who can take the best of the Reagan vision and update it for a more technologically advanced and racially diverse era. The aforementioned leaders have that ability. It’s only a matter of time before they have the chance to demonstrate it.

There is cause for hope. If a new conservatism—untainted by the old cultural stereotypes, undamaged by the legacy of a failed Republican administration, unhurt by the image of anti-intellectualism and ideological intolerance—can gain a foothold in America, it can grow even faster than it grew during the Reagan ‘80s. Now that Obama has essentially admitted his Administration will be little more than a ‘90s rehash, it’s only a matter of time before the seeds of the new conservatism can be planted.

The old conservatism died on November 4. It needed to die. The old conservatism was charged with racism, homophobia, greed and religious intolerance in the court of public opinion—and thanks to the overzealous prosecutors of the mainstream press, it was found guilty and executed. It is now time for a new, more politically savvy conservatism—a conservatism embraced by a generation comfortable with Americans from all races, religions and backgrounds, a conservatism that can undercut and destroy the false claims of the Fourth Estate, a conservatism that is as knowledgeable about Facebook as it is about Fred Barnes.

The old conservatism was just that, old. To many Americans, it seemed as though conservatism was just something for Caucasian Christians with canes and comb-overs. To quote Steely Dan’s song “Pretzel Logic”, “…Those days are gone forever, over a long time ago.” Soon, America will ask for a new, fresh, vigorous, multiracial, eloquent, strong and supple conservatism to lead us out of the Obama Nation. When America asks, we will have the right answer.

When we win again—when America embraces the new conservatism for a new era—we should thank Obama. After all, if he didn’t bring the old conservatism to its knees, we wouldn’t have been able to get the new conservatism on its feet.