The Dish

The Onion has a dream.

You knew some crackpot would come up with it (apart from Jerry Falwell and Robert Knight). In his new book, Dinesh D’Souza does more to prove the parallels between Islamism and Christianism than I ever could. I’ll hold my peace because I’m reviewing the book for The New Republic. But Eric Scheie has a lot of sensible things to say. Money quote:

Like many bloggers, I’ve struggled over the definition of "conservative." If D’Souza’s conservatism includes a cultural alliance with declared enemies of America who stone women and execute gays, I guess I’m on the other "side" – even if I’d rather not be.

There’s an alternative alliance out there: pluralists and freedom-lovers against theocrats of all stripes. It comes in conservative and liberal varieties.

"What is it you expected from the beginning? That we’d have this thing done in two hours, so you could run to the fridge and grab a coke? That’s not a failing of President Bush, Mr. Dreher, it’s a failure in the depth of your thought.

And, now, your judgment, to record what, albeit it in monotone, is no less than an anti-war, anti-Bush screed for NPR, empowering them to pimp you out as this day’s useful idiot suggests that if you had anything to do with decision making in Iraq, things would be worse.

Fine, Mr. Dreher … you’ve jumped the warship, you’re out on your own. Please have the sense, the courtesy, the human decency to go sink to the bottom alone somewhere. While brave Americans are still fighting and dying for a necessary cause, those of us out here in the real world with experience and stamina have just that much more rowing to do, now – and still miles to go before we rest.

Go read or write a book, or something. You certainly don’t have what it takes to fight, or even help fight a difficult war. With benefit of hindsight, I’m forced to assume you never really did," – Dan Riehl, discussing Rod Dreher’s recent essay.

The post is almost a clinical exhibit in the hard right’s lamentable disposition to attack viciously anyone who dares question Bush administration orthodoxy.

How did Fred Kagan go from advocating a surge of 80,000 troops as necessary for success in Baghdad last December 4 to only 30,000 last December 27? Greg Djerejian wants to know.

In trying to understand how George W. Bush destroyed conservatism as a coherent governing philosophy, the figure of Michael Gerson is critical. In his religious fundamentalism and economic and social liberalism, Gerson epitomizes the withering of the tradition of limited government, personal responsibility and individual freedom on the right. It’s government’s task, in Gerson’s eyes, to tackle most every human problem – from family breakdown to religious upheaval in the Middle East – or face the terrible epithet of being deemed morally "cold". Freedom means selfishness to Gerson, because free people don’t always act up to his exacting moral standards. This quote captures Michael’s philosophy perfectly:

Campaigning on the size of government in 2008, while opponents talk about health care, education and poverty, will seem, and be, procedural, small-minded, cold and uninspired. The moral stakes are even higher. What does antigovernment conservatism offer to inner-city neighborhoods where violence is common and families are rare? Nothing. What achievement would it contribute to racial healing and the unity of our country? No achievement at all. Anti-government conservatism turns out to be a strange kind of idealism—an idealism that strangles mercy.

If you don’t believe big government is the answer to the problems of poverty, you have no mercy? Suddenly, Bush’s attack on the conservative soul becomes more comprehensible.

The British prime minister has been politically destroyed by the Iraq war. Gerard Baker believes the opprobrium is excessive:

People used to shout ‘fascist’ at Margaret Thatcher but I don’t really ever think their heart was in it. With Mr Blair it’s deadly serious. Imagine the raucous, triumphant, mocking Shia at Saddam Hussein’s execution ‚Äî minus the beards ‚Äî and you have a sense of what most of these people feel about the Prime Minister.

(Photo: Luke McGregor/AP).

They’ve flipped – according to the latest AP/Ipsos poll. Noam Scheiber notices:

While 52 percent of Republicans support the surge according to a just-released AP/Ipsos poll, some 60 percent of white evangelicals oppose it, as do 56 percent of self-described conservatives.

So we have the beginnings of what I referred to today on the Chris Matthews’ Show: an anti-war, socially conservative surge in the Republican party. Now all you have to do is add economic populism to that mix, and you’ve got yourself a powerful electoral combination. Is this the horse Sam Brownback plans to ride in on? Someone surely will.

(Photo: Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas.)

For stating the obvious about the president’s exhausted speech, Peggy Noonan gets tagged with the "Bush Derangement Syndrome" by Hugh Hewitt’s side-kick, Dean Barnett. At some point, someone will surely point out that "Bush Derangement Syndrome" is more accurately applied to those who still believe the president is even minimally competent. Like Dean Barnett and Hugh Hewitt, for whom Bush is still one notch down from Lincoln.

"I would not leave the region. I would not even threaten to leave the region. The idea that by threatening to leave the region will cause the political players to become sufficiently frightened that they will get their act together politically—I don’t necessarily believe that. I would stay in the region because we cannot afford this to become a regional conflict, but we might need to back away from the center of the conflict and let that fire burn, while keeping our troops in the north and perhaps on the southern border. And there is much that we can do, to keep both Iran and their Sunni neighbors from coming in massively to augment that conflict between the Shi‘a and the Sunnis. To let the fire burn in the center—this is an Arab conflict; it’s not Kurdish conflict; it’s an Arab-Sunni-Shi‘a conflict—and let conflict burn itself out," РGeneral Charles G. Boyd, National Interest.

That’s pretty much where I’ve come out on this. Get to Kurdistan and the borders and let them have their civil war. We can even exploit it for our own purposes, if we get smart enough.

A reader writes:

I agree with Rod Dreher, and with you, except that I am not "conflicted to be called" a conservative. I am still conservative, whether or not the Republican White House and congress were true to conservative principles.

However, the failure was really one that religious people have talked about for centuries: pride.  I think all of the greatest Republican errors over the past six years were committed as the result of it.  Politicians are never very short on it, are they? I do think that Bush had good motivations in invading Iraq, whether to find WMDs or to topple the cruel Hussein regime, but only pride and arrogance can explain the attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East, especially in an Islamic country.  He meant well, perhaps, but there never really was a chance. The old-fashioned religious virtue of humility would not have changed anything about 9/11, but might have prevented the current mess in the Middle East and the foreign policy disaster that has followed.

This is why conservatives stand not only for fiscal responsibility and governmental restraint, but also for traditional values. There might be some we should give up, but not hurriedly and definitely not without a careful analysis of the costs.

If by traditional values, we mean honesty, manners, personal responsibility, marriage, family and friendship, then I’m for them as well. If they mean government’s intervention in people’s bedrooms, end-of-life and reproductive decisions, and religious beliefs, then I’m against them.