Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Brooks's Confusing Conservatism   [Mark R. Levin]

David Brooks is perfect for the New York Times. He writes stuff like this:

"Some of the contributors to The National Review’s highly influential blog, The Corner, look to Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney to save the conservative movement. Their hatred of McCain is so strong, it’s earned its own name: McCain Derangement Syndrome."

I strongly oppose McCain's nomination, but I don't hate him. And I had not heard this phrase "McCain Derangement Syndrome" until Brooks dropped it into his column. And since I have been among the most aggressively outspoken in opposition to McCain here, I guess Brooks is characterizing me (and others) as hateful and deranged. (And, by the way, does anyone here see Fred or Mitt saving the conservative movement?)

I think the words "hate" and "deranged" better describe Brooks's obsession with Rush Limbaugh and his attacks against traditional conservatism. Perhaps Brooks's inexperience with conservatism and the movement, and his growing isolation from both, explain his flawed perspective — which is little more than we heard from the Gerald Ford camp in the 1976 campaign. I know because I worked in support of Governor Reagan's presidential campaign that year — when Brooks was still a liberal sorting things out.

Brooks wants to redefine conservatism, but he's not going to. He has written about a McCain-Lieberman Third Party ticket for a few years now, asserting that the war in Iraq would be the overriding issue for years to come (I understand the economy and illegal immigration have become the overriding issues for many voters, but this changes). His position doesn't stray much from the neo-conservative position, in which foreign policy rules supreme, and limited government is of little concern. So, he has to fill that gap, and he does so with a poorly conceived and increasingly frustrated insistence that we all join him in breathing life back into a kind of Nixon-Ford domestic agenda — i.e., a muck of compromises and government expansion that surrenders the ideological playing field to the Left or, if you will, an incremental socialism which Brooks sets forth as a new way. But it's an old way, and it's not conservative, and it's not what Reagan supported or did, as Brooks amazingly suggests. Of course Reagan, at times, had to compromise, but he started from a principled position, which he sought to maintain throughout his presidency. He didn't compromise in search of a new way. It's the principled part of this that Brooks demands we abandon — as John McCain has in many respects — and for this he demeans those who resist it.

Contrary to what Brooks suggests, Reagan did not campaign as a big tent Republican. To say it is so, is to completely rewrite history. I can provide an endless list of examples of Reagan sounding every bit like Rush Limbaugh. (So, we go from the era of Reagan is dead to rewriting the Reagan era to accommodate those who proffer supposedly new ideas or endorse certain candidates.) Reagan also sought policy advice from many of the organizations and media outlets Brooks generally denounces, including The Heritage Foundation, Human Events, and yes, National Review. He worked with the Moral Majority and right-to-life groups, and many other organizations with whom he shared a principled agenda. But there were arguments among conservatives about Reagan's priorities during his administration, as there are today. There has been no "narrowing" of conservatism. What Brooks is complaining about is that his favored politicians — McCain and Mike Huckabee — have in many ways abandoned conservative principles, certainly as applied to domestic issues.

Conservatives didn't hijack Reagan, he led them. But I must say Brooks is getting harder and harder to understand. This isn't about Reagan. It's about Brooks's flawed arguments.

01/22 12:59 PMShare