Wednesday September 13, 2006

BY WAY OF EXPLANATION. National Review mourns the loss of conservative insurgent Laffey vs. establishment RINO Chaffee, blubbers that the dream will never die:

Steven Laffey, a capable mayor of Cranston, ran an energetic campaign that mixed conservative and populist themes. His loss was by no means an exercise in futility: Sometimes it’s better to fight and lose than not to fight at all... And now, for the second election cycle in a row, Republican senators have received a sharp reminder that if they behave too much like liberals, they may not be senators for long.

Last month, National Review held a symposium to memorialize another insurgent campaign -- Ned Lamont vs. Joe Lieberman. The tone then, needless to say, was very different. For one thing, the insurgent Lamont was a Democrat, and victorious; for another, the idea of running an ideologically-committed insurgent against an establishment DINO was considered by NROniks to be quite mad:

William Bennett: It’s sad to see the Democratic party go this way...

Charles Keslar: Senator Lieberman’s loss to his antiwar opponent might have been such a defining moment, when the Democratic party’s decadence, its self-righteous moralism, angry desperation, and cold hunger for power, might have been revealed for all to see...

Clifford D. May:The August Purge of Joe Lieberman is not good for the Democratic party. It is now, officially, a small-tent party, not a mainstream party... disunity has been the goal of the Lamont/Sharpton/Jackson/Murtha/Soros/Sheehan/Moore/Kos wing of the Democratic party, the wing that triumphed last night in Connecticut...

John McLaughlin: The political descendents of George McGovern are excommunicating the heirs to Scoop Jackson... The leadership of the national Democratic party has abandoned the center and moved far to the left. The Republican party must seize the center once again..

To even casual observers of our hilariously venal political scene, this will not be surprising or noteworthy. What is sauce for the goose will never, ever be sauce for the gander in that world.

I bring it up mainly as an answer to the people who think I treat such characters as these unfairly -- I'm insufficiently respectful of the "substance" of their so-called arguments.

As I see it, the argument of nearly any given alicublog subject reduces quite accurately to one of a small group of common sentiments : "I got mine, don't worry about yours," "Do as I say, not as I do," "Are you comparing me to a [despised minority group name here]?" etc. I don't need a particularly complicated rhetorical apparatus to extract them -- those of us acquainted with the ancient concept of common sense find them as a pig finds truffles: with our noses.

I endeavor to extend to all people the basic respect due them as human beings, but I don't see why I need to go any further than that without evidence of merit.