TAKE THAT!

Posted at 10:14 a.m. ET

We always depend on Tony Blankley to provide some terrific material, and again he comes through.  A great frustration in recent days has been watching Republicans jump ship.  Real heroes they.  Blankley calls them on it, and takes on the old GOP wooden heads:

On the cusp of what some think will be a major Obama victory, we are beginning to see emerge what I will call "me-too conservatives" -- initially among conservative commentators (politicians to follow). I have in mind, among others: Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, Chris Buckley, David Frum and Kathleen Parker.

Name the names, Tony.  Name the names.  The worst that can happen is, they'll call you a right-wing McCarthyite.

The hopelessly enthralled David Brooks wrote recently:
"(Obama) doesn't seem to need the audience's love. But they need his. The audiences hunger for his affection, while he is calm, appreciative and didactic.

"He doesn't have F.D.R.'s joyful nature or Reagan's happy outlook, but he is analytical. . His family is bourgeois. His instinct is to flee the revolutionary gesture in favor of the six-point plan."

Oh, did he actually say that?  Well, writing for The New York Times changes a man.

Peggy Noonan charges that Palin's "political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy. . She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation -- 'palling around with terrorists.' . But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. . She has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower. . She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts."

Tony comments:

Oh, my. Has Peggy been napping up there on Mount Olympus through the past several generations of American politics? She accuses Palin of not engaging America in a Socratic dialogue, of using phrases untethered to a political philosophy. Exactly what philosophy are the slogans "change" and "hope" tethered to?

And the heart of the matter:

I think that Peggy may have unconsciously touched on what really is going on here when she accuses Palin -- who is attracting crowds as big, if not bigger than any Reagan ever drew -- of being a "follower not a leader."

Peggy's unconscious fear may be that it will be precisely Sarah Palin (and others like her) who will be among the leaders of the about-to-be-reborn conservative movement. I suspect that the conservative movement we start rebuilding on the ashes of Nov. 4 (even if McCain wins) will have little use for overwritten, over-delicate commentary. The new movement will be plain-spoken and socially networked up from the Interneted streets, suburbs and small towns of America. It certainly will not listen very attentively to those conservatives who idolatrize Obama and collaborate in heralding his arrival. They may call their commentary "honesty." I would call it -- at the minimum -- blindness.

Wonderfully stated.  He writes as well as Peggy Noonan.  Finally...

The new conservative movement will be facing a political opponent that will reveal itself soon to be both multiculturalist and Eurosocialist. We will be engaged in a struggle to the political death for the soul of the country. As I did at the beginning of and throughout the Buckley/Goldwater/Reagan/Gingrich conservative movement, I will try to lend my hand. I certainly will do what I can to make it a big-tent conservative movement. But just as it does in every great cause, one question has to be answered correctly: Whose side are you on, comrade?

One nice thing about Tony:  Like Kirsten Powers (see below) it's obvious he doesn't care much about Washington party invitations, because he just lost a season's worth.

Great writing.  Solid argument.

October 22, 2008.