Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Gerson & Bushism & Clintonism & Rovism   [Jonah Goldberg]

I'm late coming to the discussion, but I am immensely grateful for Michael Gerson's column. As someone who has argued for years that compassionate conservatism is the Republican version of Clintonism, not the conservative alternative to it, it's wonderful to hear someone who helped make the sausage admit it.

The Gerson column I would love to read is how he reconciles Bushism to Rovism. Rove — for good reasons and bad — based Bush's electoral strategy, particularly his 2004 reelection strategy, on churning up the base. It seems to me that there is a profound tension between holding a "philosophy" of triangulation or the post-partisan "common good" while practicing a politics based upon pleasing only one side of the national divide. I would assume that Gerson recognized this and it caused him no small amount of frustration. But, that is merely my assumption. I'd love to hear his views on the subject. 

06/13 03:32 PMShare