The Black Republican

Just about everywhere I turned last week, I'd heard criticism of this piece by Mark Helprin in The Wall Street Journal. And for good reason - it's a rather testy diatribe against radio talkers, their listeners, and and principled conservatives for "playing recklessly with electoral politics by sabotaging their own party ostensibly for its impurity" and for the (ironically erroneous Dow Jones) notion that they'll make more money under a Democratic presidency. I thought I'd heard all there was to hear, and hadn't bothered to actually read the column until I caught up with James Taranto's Wednesday offering. That's when I noticed this:

Ostracism following tests of "right thinking" is a specialty of the left. Not that it doesn't exist on the right, blooming with great malice especially on the radio. But in light of their prospects, conservatives have no room for it. For by their neglectful forfeit they have lost the battles of culture and education, and to remain other than an occult force they must express their beliefs through politics, from which, after November, they may be for a time excluded.

First off, the notion that Rush Limbaugh and his pals have neglected culture and education is either laughable or disturbingly creepy. I won't bother to make my point by quoting "The Doctor of Democracy at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies", or the host who regularly features "culture war" segments, or another who claims his show is "the Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment". Suffice to say, there are rather large doses of hypocrisy and projection floating in the halls of the devoutly agnostic WSJ.

But the thing that really grabbed me about Helprin's tirade was its praise for political confusionism over the principled views of the right, and how he sees such consistency as "a specialty of the left".

Readers of this site know full well my disgust for the Left. But I have some respect for those so far out on the other end of the spectrum (Joe Biden is a favorite example) that there can be little doubt that their consistent adherence to their own principles identifies a real ideology - sick though it may be. Such "holisticity" is sorely lacking among the great swath of power-hungry Democrats, whose pursuit of electoral gains usually outpaces any coherent idea what should be accomplished with victory. I reserve most of my disdain for them, and for their mirror-image in the Republican Party like Mr. Helprin and his torture-obsessed, unconstitutional, and economically illiterate champion.

There's nothing wrong with pragmatic compromise, Mr. Helprin. But you have to possess some vague idea what you're politicking for, or the discussion devolves into haggling on a price for a product you don't actually want.