Daniel Larison, of the paleo-con American Conservative takes a look at the woes of the GOP and the conservative movement and puts the blame on national-security conservatives. It wasn’t that the Bush Administration went on an orgy of spending that made a mockery of conservative principles, or that social conservatives had a message that tended [...]
The New York Times has a look at the ideological battle within the Republican Party as the GOP deals with their drubbings in 2006 and 2008 and the Spector defection. Meanwhile, David Frum offers his own suggestions on rebuilding the party. Everyone looks at the GOP’s problems through the lens of “conservatives” versus “moderates.” That [...]
Hardvard economist Edward L. Glaeser has a fascinating and provocative piece on what he calls “small government egalitarianism”: In the 20th century, President Woodrow Wilson campaigned on a “New Freedom,” opposing Teddy Roosevelt’s big-government Progressivism. While Roosevelt wanted the government to manage monopolies, Wilson wanted trust-busting and less protectionism. Wilson perceptively noted the dangers of [...]
Tomorrow, George W. Bush rides off into history. The left is breathing a sigh of relief, their Emmanuel Goldstein is gone (although soon they will find another). Bush leaves an unpopular President—but so did Harry S. Truman. In many ways, Bush and Truman have had similar trajectories. Both began their terms in a time of [...]
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Tags: Afghanistan, bush, conservatism, Economics, Iraq, legacy, Media, republicans, taxes, terrorism, war, War On Terror
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There’s a brouhaha over Christopher Buckley leaving National Review after his endorsement of Barack Obama. Buckley, like his father, is a brilliant and witty writer, but it seems hardly surprising that he’s getting such a reaction from conservatives. Buckley’s sin isn’t heresy, it’s shallowness. His endorsement of Obama hardly makes a conservative case for Obama. [...]
David Mamet has a frank and amazing essay in The Village Voice about how he ended up going from being a “brain-dead liberal” to a conservative: I wrote a play about politics (November, Barrymore Theater, Broadway, some seats still available). And as part of the “writing process,” as I believe it’s called, I started thinking [...]
William F. Buckley, one of America’s greatest public intellectuals and the founder of National Review, has died at his home in Connecticut. In 1955, when Buckley founded National Review there was virtually no conservative intellectual movement in America. Conservatism was an ideology that was adrift from its own ideological moorings. Buckley, along with Russell Kirk [...]
