As I wait for graphics I have time to skim through the various national columnists to see what the big brains are thinking (actually, that’s not altogether true. First I looked up the 1974 Rankin-Bass stop-motion holiday cartoon The Year Without a Santa Claus and found the fan websites for both Heatmiser and Snowmiser and played both their songs loud until everyone else in the office told me to put a cork in it).

Then I went over to Peggy Noonan who had the following gem in her Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled Is there Progress Through Loss?

"But there’s unease in the base too, again for many reasons. One is that it’s clear now to everyone in the Republican Party that Mr. Bush has changed the modern governing definition of "conservative."

He did this without asking. He did it even without explaining. He didn’t go to the people whose loyalty and support raised him high and say, "This is what I’m doing, this is why I’m changing things, here’s my thinking, here are the implications." The cynics around him likely thought this a good thing. To explain is to make things clearer, or at least to try, and they probably didn’t want it clear. They had the best of both worlds, a conservative reputation and a liberal reality.

And Republicans, most of whom are conservative in at least general ways, and who endure the disadvantages of being conservative because they actually believe in ideas, in philosophy, in an understanding of the relation of man and the state, are still somewhat concussed. The conservative tradition on foreign affairs is prudent realism; the conservative position on borders is that they must be governed; the conservative position on high spending is that it is obnoxious and generationally irresponsible. Etc.

This is not how Mr. Bush has governed. And so in the base today personal loyalty, and affection, bumps up against intellectual unease."

And how, Peggy. Bully!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 28th, 2006 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.