Might have been taken seriously

This week's Newsweek cover story is an article by David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative organization. It is Frum's analysis of why Rush Limbaugh is wrong. It's rather simple: Limbaugh is a radio personality in it for the ratings. The more listeners he has and the more he makes headlines the better for his paycheck. 20 million listeners make for a good paycheck and he has to keep them listening. So what if another 100 million refuse to listen? Those disgusted with Limbaugh, however, vote against GOP candidates. He is a convenient target for Obama and progressives and the GOP gets the blame. If anyone in the GOP crosses him, he demands an apology (and usually gets it) or declares they aren't a true conservative. He and his listeners have become a cult.

Alas, for the GOP, Limbaugh declares his brand of conservatism is as old as the constitution (like the current definition of marriage is as old as civilization), when it is only as old as Reagan. The ideas that were important then are no longer what the middle class is interested in. The party has to change with the times to survive.

Frum ends with this:

Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? To narrow the coalition or enlarge it? To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit -- or to serve?

Frum says the state of conservatism is such that Obama and the Dems proposed a huge expansion in all things conservatives are against and the GOP essentially rolled over and played dead. That's not quite true, there was a spirited rebuttal of the stimulus package but in ways that were easily dismissed.

There are a large number of things in the stimulus package that were not there for stimulus (money to be spent in 2011, not 2009). There were many other things that Dems put into the bill simply because they could and it was a chance to make up for 8 years of GOP spending priorities. Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson did a story about that a few weeks ago.

But the GOP didn't list legitimate complaints about the bill. They attacked things like condoms (we're tired of the GOP view of sex ed), mice (merely a publicity stunt), and how the bill would bloat the federal deficit and debt.

While that last point is true, the GOP would have been taken seriously if they hadn't let Bush run up the debt over the last 8 years. They might be taken seriously in other issues if they offered serious criticisms instead of insisting more deregulation was necessary when it is obvious that deregulation played a big part in today's financial mess, if their compassionate conservatism was actually compassionate, if their view of science wasn't so obviously tainted by ideology, if their reasons for positions on social issues weren't so filled with cruelty and racism. I'm sure the list is much longer.

In short, we didn't get the debate the stimulus package needed.