Tuesday, September 30, 2008

National Review Online and Sarah Palin: Joining the Leftist "Politics of Personal Destruction"

National Review Online is beginning to do disturbing things.
 
It is National Review Online (National Review is the conservative magazine founded by William Buckley to be the intellectual forum for the modern conservative movement) has begun to do things that accomplish nothing but give ammunition to the left.
 
National Review Online just published an article by a virtually unknown columnist suggesting that Sarah Palin step down as McCain's VP candidate.  As I said in an earlier blog entry, this National Review article had no purpose. 
 
No, at a time when the evil, lying people at CNN, and the rest of the mainstream media, are engaged in a campaign to personally destroy Sarah Palin, and have been from the time McCain selected her.  Now that does not mean conservatives should fail to criticize Sarah Palin on issues. I have done so myself. But what is going to happen when a leading conservative magazine appears to call for Sarah Palin to step down?
 
Right.  The mainstream media is going to pick it up and urn with it, as if it were the Sermon on the Mount  This the same mainstream media that would not quote National Review on anything that did not fit the mainstream media agenda, and the same mainstream media that regards National Review as an unreliable source on almost any thing else, including conservatism.  However, it was totally predictable that the mainstream media would treat this National Review article as a recognition by conservatives that Sarah Palin is a failure.  Conservatives in general (for examle, me) have come to no such conclusion. 
 
Nope.  It was obvious how the mainstream media was going to use the National Review Online article.  And it was irresponsible to print an article they could, and would, use in that unfair way.  Now National Review had to know they would receive this kind of attention.  Was that the very agenda behind the article.  If not, what agenda was there?  There had to be one.  There was really no excuse for this particular article.  As I previously said, for Palin to leave the ticket merely guarantees McCain's defeat.  There is no Hillary Clinton waiting in the wings, as there is for Barack "World" Obama (if he finally gets sick and tired ob Biden's "worse than Palin ever thought of" gaffes.  McCain loses if Palin leaves the ticket.  That comes as close to an absolute fact as there is. 
 
Some of you may read this and say:  "Hey.  How can you condemn National Review, when you say worse things about Republicans every day."
 
While that criticism of me has a certain limited validity, it misses the point.  I am not saying that National Review should not criticize Republicans on issues.  I am saying that National Review has no business making the attack on a specific Republican personal, when it knows the attack will aid the leftist personal attacks.  Nope again.  I do not consider it a substantive article to suggest that Palin "step down"  That is a personal attack masquerading as "analysis".   I would have had no problem with an article analyzing Palin's performance as unsatisfactory (although I question such an article that fails to note the total verbal incompetence of Joe Biden).  The "sensational" request for Palin to step down is just that:  an attempt to use a sensational assertion to gain attention.
 
I would not run many--even most--of my entries in National Review, as I have written them  That is not because I think the substance of what I have written is unfit for National Review.  It is because I slam McCain, and other Republicans and conservatives, in deliberately colorful terms.  If I were regularly going to be picked up by CNN, I would not put things exactly this way (while saying the same things).  And even with my lack of restraint, I have never called for dropping Mccain or Palin as candidates.  I would never do so, because there is no purpose to it.  When I say the charge against me might have some validity, I mean that leftists on the blog can pick up some things in this blog out of context, and allege that they represent credible conservative attacks on other conservatives and/or Republicans.  I recognize that problem, and I think leftists are more uniform in their "talking" points because leftists do operate that way.  They support other leftists, and condemn Republicans/conservatives, no matter what.  The only exception is that the really far, totally kook left (usually anti-war) willsometimes attack everyone that does not agree with them  But most Pelosi/Reid/Obama/Chris Dodd/Barney Frank leftists don't care about consistency or the "truth".  They join attacks on conservatives, and defense of leftists, at all costs.  Most conservatives think more independently than that.  And it is helping leftist Democrats with their present Big Lie strategy.
 
So this blog can be used by leftists, if they really thought I had enough conservative "cred" to make it worth their while (which I don't).  If I did have that "cred", I would moderate the language slightly (without changing the substance). 
 
But the point remains.  Even I would never have an entry asking Palin to step down, although I am perfectly capable of saying I endorse Bob Barr (as I do; he is right, by the way, on this bailout bill)  At the same time, I make it clear that is not a matter of endorsing Obama, or suggesting that McCain step down. 
 
For some time, I have not thought that National Review has really been much of a "leader" of conservative thought  I do think they stood by conservatives against the threat of McCain better than rush Limaugh (who stood on the sidelines until it was too late).  Natiional Review endorsed Romney before Iowa--time enough to stop McCain if other conservatives had joined in.  Byron York is consistently an outstanding writer and thinker.  But National Reivew just no longer seems to have a coherent voice, and does things--like the Palin article--for which there is no excuse.
 
That is why I do not fully endorse National Review Online, althogh it is often worth looking at.  They probably reciprocate.  They probably don't endorse me.
 
P.S.  You may see from the above that I worry some about the difference between the left and the right at the present time.  The left is totally focused on destroying the right.  The right (at least some of us) are willing to criticize our "allies" when we think it is appropriate.  Is the left approach to way to power?  Might be.  I worry about it.  But it is not healthy.  Instead of "my country right or wrong", leftists believe:  "leftist Democrats, right or wrong, so long as they don't suport Repubicans like Joe LIeberman".  If we end up with two sides with taht attitude, where both sides care little about real principle but only about power, then we are really in trouble  The problem is that I also think we are in trouble if people like McCain prevail, who seem to fave few domestic principles otehr than a desire to be "bipartisan" and get things done.  And the peoole for whom I hve the comst contempt are those, like CNN, MSNBC and the mainstream media following leftist instructions, who are willing to tryy to personally destroy people at any cost.  That is why I am so disppointed in National Review lending itself to the attempt to persoanlly destroy Sarah Palin.      

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