Former Publisher of Natl Review: A Conservative for Obama

[The Blue Flower]

http://www.dmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Core+Pages&type=gen&mod=Core+Pages&tier=3&gid=B33A5C6E2CF04C9596A3EF81822D9F8E

"But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. "

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.

In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher.

Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions. Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results.

Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of “oughts.” We ought to do this or that because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether it works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling good rather than doing good.

But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask.

Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth.

This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse.

Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.

Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.

“Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.

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[monmouth]

1. Watched Christopher Buckley Sunday on C-SPAN's "Book" show.

He was of course, GHW Bush's speech writer and wrote "Thank You For Smoking." He's a lot like William F. and of course conservative. He is also very personable, funny and charismatic. He told of a time when he wrote a speech for McCain back a while for a Gridiron dinner, and hopes he gets the call to write one soon for McCain's inaugural. I know it has nothing to do with the OP, but saw National Review and it came to mind. Thanks for your posting. Very interesting.

[gypsylud]

2. nice

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Youchies

:rofl:

[JDPriestly]

4. I disagree with the definitions of liberal and conservatism, but

as a liberal who not only enjoys reading and re-reading the Constitution and the Federalist Papers but also the correspondence and writings of Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Lincoln, et al., I agree that Obama is the man of the moment.

I have observed a number of former conservatives switch to the Democratic Party in recent years. Most of them have switched in response to Bush's betrayal of the conservative economic philosophy, which used to be summed up as "live within your means." That philosophy is now more revered among Democrats than among Republicans who seem to think that America is the land of unlimited milk and honey in which there are never any negative consequences for overoptimism and spending, spending, spending.

It's my liberal friends who most carefully live within their means in their personal lives. In my experience it's the political conservatives who overextend themselves and view themselves as wealthier than they are.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that liberalism is a philosophy of "oughts." To the contrary, liberals embody flexibility. It's conservatives who are the naysayers, who stubbornly hang on to old formulas, old ideas, old solutions long after they have proved unworkable.

All that matters to us liberals is results. If privatizing works, we are for it. If it doesn't (and Katrina and Ike prove it does not when it comes to emergency response), or if it fosters corruption (as it has in Iraq), then we are against it.

Conservatives like to talk about accountability. We liberals want to see accountability -- without doctrinal rigidity. That is why we care so much about affordable healthcare, public education and opportunity for all who are willing to work hard and play by the rules as well as congressional oversight of the administration.

For us liberals, it's not a matter of applying an overruling principle in deciding what "ought" to work. It's a matter of trying new ideas when old ones aren't working. It's about seeing what works. That is why our movement is so unruly. That is why we liberals disagree among ourselves so vociferously on just about everything, but also why we are so ready to give new ideas a chance.

Welcome to the big tent, the liberal tent. Glad to have you.