10/29/2013
One McCain is too many!
I have taken RedState’s Erick Erickson very seriously since I saw he was the only other writer calling for a filibuster against Commissar Kagan’s coronation to the Supreme Court. And I applauded his caustic assessment of Eric Cantor. But his attack on National Review today The Hungry and the Well Fed RedState Tuesday October 29, 2013 puts him on a new level. Very probably it also signifies that a GOP split is inevitable.After a standard (but not totally inaccurate) evocation of the early Bill Buckley Erickson strikes, noting that nowadays the magazine’s
…editorial positions read more like those of the Republican National Committee than the standard bearer of American conservatism…The present editors of National Review, over the last several years, have made it clearer and clearer that they now speak mostly for the well-fed right and not for conservatives hungering for a fight against the leviathan. They have made their peace with the New Deal, moving beyond Buckley.Complaining about NR’s Romney endorsement in 2012 Erickson goes on
…always willing to surprise their readers with just how much they’ve become the voice of the Republican Party instead of the conservative movement, their latest goes further.(This is Against Despair By Ramesh Ponnuru & Rich Lowry National Review Online October 28, 2013)
… the editorial spends 3,591 words despairing that conservatives are fighting and making clear that National Review, too, is not inclined to yell Stop, “or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” National Review does not like the fight because it pits conservatives against Republicans…in the hard slogs against the establishment of our own side, National Review most often chooses to sit with the establishment or on the sidelines….It has drifted from its position at the pole of conservatism into the currents of a political party. It is the house publication for the Republican Party.and concludes
I await the well-fed editors apologizing for the Goldwater candidacy. At this point, it is only a matter of time.(In effect, of course NR’s Martin Luther King worship is already a repudiation of Goldwater.)
VDARE.com, which was created because of the Neocon/Republican Establishment takeover of National Review must applaud Erickson’s analysis. We have no time for the magazine, Rich Lowry or Ramesh Ponnuru Furthermore we think their tepid opposition to the Amnesty/Immigration Surge stems purely from the need keep up with their base, which they could easily lose on the issue.
We also believe the later Bill Buckley did as much or more damage as the earlier one did good — but we concede that the troops need heroes.
But the fact is that the balance of power has shifted since the 1950s. Massive nonconservative funding has made RINOism a paying proposition — the need for grassroots support and election victories to make a political living is much diminished.
This situation has to be grasped because it is going to enable a bloody fight to the death.
But RedState has come a long way. Erick Erickson deserves the Nation’s applause.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.