The Beat (It) Goes On: A Conservative Stampede

This first decade of the 21st Century is "the best of times, the worst of times" for political journalists, just as it was for the citizens of late 18th Century France in A Tale of Two Cities, the source of that memorable quote. Charles Dickens was referencing the period of the class warfare between the aristocracy and the proletariat during the French Revolution, and it has an intense echo in the conflict between conservatives and liberals in the United States today. The incessant drumbeat of charges, countercharges and events in the 2008 presidential campaign provides journalists on both sides of the ledger with a rich supply of dramatic material for their commentaries. This is not your garden variety grandmother's tea party, and it makes for the best of times for writers.

But the rapid twists and turns in the campaign also make for the worst of times because they challenge the long-held and deeply-committed positions of the pundits, particularly among conservatives. The McCain-Palin ticket has had a severe impact on the writers of the right and sent them running for the hills. Witness the crescendo of the stampede:

Item: Last month, Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist for the conservative National Review Online, wrote an article called, "Palin Problem: She's out of her league," that drew 12,000 emails, most them in protest.

Item: Last month, George Will, the dean of conservative writers, wrote in the Washington Post, "McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency."

Item: Last week, David Brooks, the New York Times conservative columnist spoke at a reception for The Atlantic Magazine where he called Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party."

Item: Last weekend, David Freddoso, a staff reporter for conservative National Review Online, and the author of The Case Against Barack Obama, a high flyer on the New York Times bestseller list, wrote an article in the New York Post entitled, "Wrong for the Right," in which he said that "McCain's abrupt embrace of a big-government solution to the mortgage crisis during last week's debate places an exclamation point upon his many apostasies from conservative thought."

Item: Last weekend, Christopher Buckley, the son of William F. Buckley, founder of the National Review, wrote an article called, "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama," that produced such an outcry among conservatives, he was forced to resign from the publication.

Item: On Monday, the pace accelerated. At the Time Warner Summit conference on the 2008 election, Byron York, the National Review White House correspondent, and Peggy Noonan, a former speech writer for George H.W. Bush and current Wall Street Journal columnist, two prominent conservative journalists, spoke about Sarah Palin.

York said, "She may be a very effective governor of Alaska who wasn't able to pick up on what you need to be an effective vice presidential candidate."

Noonan said, "From an unveiling that gave rise to questions to a very strong convention speech, to interviews that were disastrous, to a debate in which she came back very strong, to now, ten days on the campaign trail, where I think it is fair to say: that didn't work."

Item: Also on Monday, Heather Mac Donald, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and editor of the organization's City Journal, wrote of Sarah Palin, "the inability to answer a straightforward question about economic policy without becoming tangled in words suggests either ignorance about the subject matter or a difficulty connecting between ideas. Neither explanation is reassuring."

Item: Also on Monday, William Kristol, the founder and editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, wrote in the New York Times, "The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional." Kristol went on to recommend, "It's time for John McCain to fire his campaign."

Item: Monday culminated with Kathleen Parker whose National Review article started the stampede. Coming full circle, she appeared on "The Colbert Report" where she told the host that her article had prompted off-the record emails and phone calls from the White House that agreed with her opinion of Palin.

The beat goes on.

Comments

[WorkingClass]

They didn't have a problem with Bush/Cheney but they do with McCain/Palin? They are jumping ship but they are still rats.

[stamp123]

Here's David Brooks' Oct.16 article, "Thinking about Obama":
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It's a disingenuous, backhanded insult masquerading as an endorsement. Brooks is of course entitled to his point of view, but journalistic integrity demands a reasoned presentation of facts, not a carefully-woven web of insinuations and sneakily-constructed disparaging language disguised as rational discourse. I was disappointed.

More detailed analysis of the article here:
http://pageslap.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/nytimes-david-brooks-hopes-youll-agree-obama-is-dull-and-a-machine/

[dumboldfarmer]

Where are the true journalists? I read somewhere that one of our so-called journalists made a statement that he had to respect a candidate when asking questions. What? How about his respecting the people of the United States and asking the hard questions? Don't ask soft questions, ask the really hard questions and do it fairly. In a presidential election, no questions should be "off-limits". If media ac`ts this way, they are complicit in media propaganda and not journalists at all.

[breezyholler]

Does being on the "right" mean that one is always presumed to be right and should never even entertain a differing opinion?

[Civil KStater]

The thing I find the most interesting is Christopher Buckley having to resign. Isn't a civil discourse good to move ideas forward? The manner in which the conservatives have become a party of you agree with us or you can leave is most telling. Christopher Buckley should not have been forced to resign. His support of Obama should have sent a message to the National Review readers. If the Review's founder's son is so disheartened by the conservative direction that he would rather support Obama, then perhaps its time to be introspective and try and right the ship. Instead they force him to quit. The intolerance coming from conservatives is borderline scary.

[Zeppo2]

Not forgetting Matthew Dowd also.

[ScooterLiddy]

And that is just the conservatives who see through her! Unbelievable. Thanks for the round-up.

[BarackMarley]

What are the conservaives going to say when they found out Palin's America-Hating past

CNN just covered Palin's connection to the radical Alaskan secessionist group, AKIP
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/elections/cnn-covers-palins-akip-connection/

[RobinSeattle]

All is forgiven because she is a conservative. If Pol Pot was still alive and suddenly converted to the neocon philosophy, the GOP would be loving him from sea to shining sea.

Republicans, after all, installed mass murdering dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile and another brutal regime in Guatemala. And they are still nostalgic for the days when they could do that.

[BlackJAC]

You're talking about a political wing that thinks flying the Confederate flag means they love America.

[bknott]

Conservatives are fully aware of the Alaskan Independence Party. However, the members of that party are "people with small town values" (similar the Republican base) and Ayers was a Vietnam-era hippie.

Let's face it - Republicans really only care about hair. Ayers looked pretty shaggy in those 60's photos. Todd Palin, on the other hand, looks like a farmer from Nebraska. And if he wants to secede Alaska from the US, well hell, every Republican agrees when someone asks them to pay their taxes!