One Thing We Can Agree On

Any effort to remake the GOP, whether making it more tech savvy, youthful, or even hip hop, may be mooted by events. One of the keenest conservative aphorisms is “if it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change.” The Democrats may make it unnecessary to change. There is no part of the Republican coalition happy with the present spending bill. It attacks Burke’s “little platoons” by reducing the incentive to charitable giving. The President has also engaged in friendly fire, as the colleges and universities that so fervently support him rely on huge bequests by rich alumni. The liberal fat cats of Wall Street and Hollywood who did not mind high taxes in the abstract find it less pleasant in reality. During the election a tart rejoinder to any spending concern by Obama detractors was “they can’t be worse than Bush and the Republicans.” That, it turns out, was a good bet to take.

On ethics, the tax cheat cabinet is ripe for ridicule, especially as policy blunders accumulate. The Congressional Democrats seem almost to relish keeping ethically challenged individuals in sensitive positions. Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, and John Murtha have been in Washington for a combined 100 years. They are not going to change now. This issue is most salient with weak Republicans and swing voters. It will hurt the Democrats at the worst time, with the voters they can least afford to lose. It will also depress activists in the party and thus turnout. I am absolutely amazed that a party that prospered on Republican corruption has done nothing to get rid of bad apples in its own midst. Newt Gingrich’s Republicans issued term limits for chairmen and reformed the House Bank that had so aided their rise. The Democrats have eliminated term limits, limited minority rights and elevated the worst (at least I hope they are the worst) malefactors in their ranks to chairmanships and other high positions.

Some problems are like the proverbial cloud no larger than a man’s hand, but threaten to grow very quickly. President Obama is the least concerned with human rights and of the survival of liberty abroad of any President in living memory. He has appointed a supporter of the Saudi Royal Family and apologist for the Chinese Communists to be a gatekeeper of what national security information gets to the President, upsetting his strongest supporters. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just went to China and refused to bring up Peking’s human rights record. Students of Brent Scowcroft and Zbig Brzezinski are running policy now.

President Ford, Jimmy Carter and the first President Bush were all damaged by a refusal to challenge our adversaries on human rights. All of them were advised by either Brent Scowcroft or Zbig Brzezinski into the blunders that nearly cost Ford the nomination and helped oust the other two from the Presidency. The American people support Israel against the despotisms that surround it. A foreign policy that consistently engages in moral equivalency between Tel Aviv and Tehran will not long retain their support. Trading with China does not require abandoning the people of Tibet, or the would-be mothers of China.

President Obama has, in one month, enraged the low tax, pro-growth wing of the Republican party. Multi-trillion dollar deficits have shocked the balanced budget Democrats and Republicans. He has reneged on his anti-lobbyist/transparency agenda. He has embarked on a foreign policy so devoid of morality as to make Talleyrand blush. He is assembling a coalition greater than 51% against him without the Republican Party having to figure out what it thinks, or even whether it needs to twitter more.