Posted on 10/17/2008 9:34:11 AM PDT by St. Louis Conservative
The truth few wish to utter is that the GOP has abandoned many conservatives, who mostly nurse their angst in private. Those chickens we keep hearing about have indeed come home to roost. Years of pandering to the extreme wing — the “kooks” the senior Buckley tried to separate from the right — have created a party no longer attentive to its principles.
Instead, as Christopher Buckley pointed out in a blog post on thedailybeast.com explaining his departure from National Review, eight years of “conservatism” have brought us “a doubled national debt, ruinous expansion of entitlement programs, bridges to nowhere, poster boy Jack Abramoff and an ill-premised, ill-waged war conducted by politicians of breathtaking arrogance.”
Republicans are not short on brainpower — or pride — but they have strayed off course. They do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why.
Christopher Buckley, ever the swashbuckling heir to his father’s defiant spirit, walked the plank so that the sinking mother ship might right itself.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
This is why I cringed when Bush used this phrase in his first run for the presidency (he didn't use it the second time around because conservatives didn't want to hear it anymore). Real conservatives knew what "compassionate conservatism" truly meant - it was simply re-packaged moderatism, i.e. liberal Republicanism. Bush is a moderate, not a conservative, with most of his domestic agenda being proof of this fact.
If the GOP loses this election, the loss will sit squarely on the shoulders of the elitist moderates in the party. McCain is no conservative, either, at least not enough to be able to call himself one. He is instead nearly the perfect moderate candidate, one who has mostly been unable to articulate a vision of what he truly stands for. Parker and Buckley should love this guy since he is one of them. They are not conservatives.
This column would have some legitimacy if she & Buckley were throwing their support to somebody like Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin as a protest because “the GOP deserves to lose this one” due to having abandoned conservatism. But instead, they’re actively giving support to the most openly Marxist candidate ever.
Do you think Parker & Noonan really want Obama to win? Did Noonan not read the editorial in The Wall Street Journal (her paper, mind you) about the disastrous effects of a Dem trifecta?
I can understand a disgruntled conservative voting for Bob Barr or Chuck Baldwin. I don’t agree with it, it’s not pragmatic, but I at least understand the point of view there. But no conservative, not now, not EVER, could vote affirmatively FOR Obama. Any “conservative” that does that doesn’t have very strong convictions.
Contrary to Parker's praise of National Review’s supposed radicalism and eclecticism in Bill Buckley's heyday, no one at National Review endorsed Humphrey over Nixon, McGovern over Nixon, Carter over Ford, or Mondale over Bush, or Gore over Bush.
Although National Review relentlessly pointed out deviations from conservatism by Republican candidates and administrations, at election time, practical politics dictated their choices. This year, McCain is the only sensible choice for conservatives.
Some of us know the difference between Conservatives and Republicans. Many of us don’t. If you support a Republican because you think he (or she) is necessarily a Conservative, you will be sadly mistaken.
there is so much jealosy out there....mostly women...but some men...because we wouldn’t all want another stuffed white shirted middleaged guy with the typical charisma of a normal pub....answer is HELL NO.
Parker fries my a$$. She is the kook. An ivory tower and silver-spoonish kind of kook, but still a kook. She does not speak for me as Sarah does and by, her effete posture, she is helping Obama and is therefore an enemy of the people and the nation. There is no place for her or her ilk in a true conservative resurgence.
That was a brilliant use of the Hitler Analogy. Hear, hear!!!
You just gave the best blurb on Kathleen Parker I’ve ever read!
Excellent post. It does a soul good to hang out with the ordinary folks here at FR. We have more common sense in our 200 word posts than the collected works of half a dozen "conservative" columnists.
elitists vs. populists
My thoughts exactly. I have noticed the trend in the country over the past few years. People without Ivy-League educations need not apply....
“Buckley said this week that he was going to vote for ‘The One.’ Isn’t that like killing to baby to cure diaper rash?”
Yes. If McCain doesn’t deserve to live, surely Obama deserves to win less. If Buckley wanted to take a principled stand and swallow the bitter pill, he should vote Libertarian or Constitutional. Don’t vote Obama. Never, never.
Only Chistopher Buckley has openly come out in favor of Obama, but Parker's high fives and Noonan's bizarre screeds seem to suggest an exasperration that can only be harmful at this point. Yes, the republican party, and consrvativism itself is in disarray and hasn't had an articulate spokesperson in many years, but the dialogue on that issue should begin after the election. Not three weeks before. If Obama wins, then that discussion won't even matter for several years.
lol...but a Republican voting for the farthest leftwing wacko in U.S. history is being "attentive to [conservative] principles?"
It comes down to this: If Parker and Buckley's spoiled kid were ever conservatives (which I seriously doubt), they were on shaky ground, at best. And they've both evidently fallen for B-HO's style/personality, not his principles. Iow, they're emotional cripples.
What an utterly absurd column. How does CB’s endorsement of Obama exemplify the “radical conservativism” of WFB? What, exactly, does Obama stand for that retains the heart Republican party that supposedly has left Parker and CB? Of course, she does not say. There is not the slightest shred of actual argument in the column to support her blanket condemnations of the right wing of the party other than to tout the supposed brilliance of CB (and, by implication, broadcasting her own intellectual prowess). In other words, “the Republican party left me; why you ask? Because we said so and we’re smarter than you, that’s why.” How on earth did someone so arrogant ever take over the NR? In fact, she exemplifies exactly the sort of elitist mentality that the great Buckley ridiculed.
It is not simply a matter of disagreement over the Palin pick, or the Bush administration or any specific collection of policy debates (all of which are and should be debated by conservatives). It’s the utter arrogance and blithe dismissal of any disagreement as being simply the result of what she thinks is a dumbing down of the party. Beyond that, however, I once again point to the fact that she makes no attempt whatsoever to explain how supporting Obama in any way furthers any principle of conservativism (in any rational sense of the word). She doesn’t do so because she can’t, because CB’s endorsement of Obama is exactly what it appears to be—an admission that CB himself is not a conservative, irrespective of what he or she thinks has happened to the Republican party. In other words, the alleged critique of the Republican party is nothing more than a paper-thin veil covering a move that is decidedly not conservative in any way, shape or form.
Republicans are not short on brainpower — or pride — but they have strayed off course. They do not, in fact, deserve to win this time, and someone had to remind them why.So Kathleen Parker believes that because of the personal shortcomings of some Republicans that the country therefore deserves socialism and a far-left supermajority, the death of the conservative agenda for a generation, and the destruction of all that it has achieved since WFB stood up to champion it?
Pretty soon, Kathleen will be writing for the Huffington Post.
That Bill Buckley's son has quit his father's "baby" and is going to vote for the most clear anti-thesis of his father's belief system clearly indicates that Little Buckley has not been a true conservative for a while and an opportunist at best.
Strike three against Parker. First last year she said Hillary Clinton was “well qualified” to be president. Then she slammed Sarah Palin a few weeks ago. Now she calls conservative Republicans yahoos (that’s me folks) and tacitly endorses Obama. Parker has just written herself out of the conservative camp joining Buckley and Powell. So long Kate, it’s been nice to not know you.
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