Tuesday, November 04, 2008

His Majesty's Loyal Opposition   [Mark Steyn]

The phrase is apt, I think. Congratulations to President Obama, as we must come to think of him. I agree with Jonah. He fought a brilliant campaign, beginning with his total befuddlement of the supposed sharpest operators in the country, the Clintons. Where's the old politics of personal destruction when we needed it in the snows of Iowa, eh?

As for us losers, there's no point going down the right-wing version of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Any shrill vicious ad hominem invective would be much better directed at each other. The Republicans lost this election. I disagree with Lisa. I think we are near a point at which America joins the rest of the west as a center-left society — that's to say, a society whose assumptions about the role of government and the size of the state are far closer to Continental social democracies than to the Founding Fathers. In a grim media-cultural environment, the temptation for American conservatism is to be seduced into becoming one of those ever so mildly right-of-left-of-right-of-left-of-center parties they have in Europe. We should have the fight about conservatism's future vigorously and openly — perhaps at Bud's Roadhouse out on Route 137 in lieu of All-Girl Mud-Wrestling Night.

11/04 11:39 PMShare