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Switch to Decaf
The Corner on National Review Online — Friday, October 17, 2008 [image] Switch to Decaf [Ramesh Ponnuru] In an otherwise good post , Ross Douthat refers to "the great right-wing pundit civil war." Maybe we'll have one after the election, but the current fight is not yet nearly as big or bitter as the divisions over Colin Powell in 1995, the First Things controversy in 1996, the Bush-vs.-McCain contest in 2000, or even immigration in 2006-7. ...

Re: Switch to decaf
The Corner on National Review Online — ... ] Okay, Ramesh, I'll bite. In a desperate attempt to keep "the great right-wing pundit war" going, let me say I didn't think the Ross Douthat post was that good. Toward the end, he writes: If you want Sarah Palin as your standard-bearer, you need a [David] Brooks, or someone like him, at the table when her speeches are being written and her policy positions are being hashed out. You need elites, and you especially need elites who work and live outside the conservative cocoon. That last bit reminds me of the apocryphal London newspaper headline "Fog In Channel. Continent ...

Quick Links
PoliGazette — ... 6. Conservatives have been busily debating each other for days over the direction of the Republican Party, the role of the elites vs. the footsoldiers, and so on. Especially two posts by ...

The Conservative Cash Cocoon
Firedoglake — ... commentary? It's a sweet gig -- even being proved flatly wrong is another excuse to scream through your outsized megaphone about how marginalized you are by a meanie MSM while you keep raking in the endless fat paychecks. Just ask Christopher Buckley right now about the upside-down incentive structure of 21st-century conservatism. A debacle is no reason not to cash in. AIG, NRO: a meltdown is just a business expense. This is why I had to laugh at this plaintive bleat from Ross Douthat: ...

“THE CONSERVATIVE COCOON?”
Right Wing Nut House — ... excessive pork. And today, the cocoon is the place where conservatives are busy convincing themselves that Sarah Palin’s difficulties handling high-profile media appearances aren’t terribly important, that her instincts are more important than her grasp of national policy, and that the best way to defeat Barack Obama is to start with the lines that Palin has used on the stump – Ayers, anti-Americanism and ACORN - and take them to eleven.So when I say that a populist conservatism needs elites , what I really mean is that it needs elites who can step outside this cocoon and ...

Plumming the Depths
The Poor Man Institute — ... women who work, unions, immigrants, urbanites, public libraries, the poor, people who live near salt water, the secular or heterodox, the ENEMEDIA, fictional child wizards, scientists, community organizers, people who drink the wrong caffeinated beverages, Ay-rabs (those people whose anscestors hail from somewhere between Greece and Bangladesh, and perhaps Venezuala), people who drink the wrong alcoholic beverages,”intellectuals”, and all the works and pomps of Modernity - has come home.  Now that good, decent, honest Conservatives With Bow Ties are being attacked ...

10/20: The Ultimate Obamacan?
Blogometer — ... excessive pork. And today, the cocoon is the place where conservatives are busy convincing themselves that Sarah Palin's difficulties handling high-profile media appearances aren't terribly important, that her instincts are more important than her grasp of national policy, and that the best way to defeat Barack Obama is to start with the lines that Palin has used on the stump -- Ayers, anti-Americanism and ACORN -- and take them to eleven. So when I say that a populist conservatism needs elites , what I really mean is that it needs elites who can step outside this cocoon and ...

Rush Is Not the Problem
The Next Right — ... of the world would be well served by staying away from this argument. As Ross himself has written, the grassroots needs elites -- and the elites need the grassroots. By trying to isolate Rush, the elites break down this elegant separation and veer into micromanaging the grassroots -- a losing proposition, particularly against a brand as sticky as Rush. By staging a power play against Rush, they also play into the Democrats' far-fetched notion that Rush is the GOP's leader -- ...