In his online column today, Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post quoted from a National Review column by the editors on the impending selection of Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
The party is displaying an unquenchable thirst for irrelevance. Several theories have been advanced in the wake of Bush’s reelection for the Democrats’ troubles: a lack of seriousness on national security; an out-of-touch liberalism on social issues; an inability to sell its message in terms that connect with ‘red state’ voters. The DNC is about to reject all these theories in favor of one of its own — all that ails the Democratic can be fixed by more of the same, only more so.
…the fact is that Dean did not run as a moderate in the Democratic primaries, when he cemented his national image as a ranter against the Iraq war and tax cuts, even before his infamous Iowa scream. He was so far left on social issues that he pledged — riffing off of Bill Clinton’s status as “the first black president” — to be the first gay president.
…Say what you will about them, at least the Clintons have always been willing to accommodate American realities enough to win elections. But, in the meantime, there will be Dean, who would represent another step by the Democrats into the quicksand of outdated orthodoxies and self-pleasing emotionalism.
I have reservations about Dean’s discipline and organizing skills. But the idea that this guy is some left-wing ideologue doesn’t seem to fit. I would argue, as many conservatives have for decades, that not engaging in unnecessary foreign entanglements, a la Iraq, and fiscal irresponsibility, a la tax cuts, is hardly left wing. It’s not even moderate. It’s conservative.
“Self-pleasing emotionalism” seems to be the calling card of conservatives. Even though the GOP has total control of the legislative and executive branches, it still trades in hyper-emotional rants against gays who want to marry and raise children and women who do not want to bring children into the world when they cannot raise them.
Since when are tolerance and nurturing “outdated orthodoxies”?
And what is a liberal?