National Review in Wonderland

[gardenstate]

Rich Lowry, editor of NR, has been running through the Tea Party forrest, has apparently fallen in a hole, and hit his head.

Lowry has the acumen to not overtly bash populism like George F. Will, buthis assertion made ina September, 23, 2009 column, "Palin's Hong Kong Speech" that Sarah Palin is "an authentic, powerful voice of the populist right" is a weak-minded attempt to revive the strategy of conservative fusionism.

At the moment Lowry seems congenial to the prospect of working with the populist right, but has an ill-defined concept of what populism is. The following are parts of Palin's speech that Lowry deems populist:

Free Trade:

"Sadly, however, our largest free trade agreement ever in Asia, with South Korea, sits frozen in the Congress. In contrast, China is behaving wisely in negotiating free trade agreements throughout Asia. We want an Asia open to our goods and services. But if we do not get our free trade act together, we will be shut out by agreements Asians our making among themselves."

No mention of repealing NAFTA, government spending on infrastructure projects, tariffs, or protecting the American steel,coal, textile and manufacturing sectors.

Fiscal Reponsibility and Limited Government:

"The World War II generation – lose their homes and their life savings because their retirement funds were wiped after the financial collapse, people feel a great anger. There is suddenly a growing sentiment to just “throw the bums out” of Washington, D.C. – and by bums they mean the Republicans and the Democrats. Americans are suffering from pay cuts and job losses, and they want to know why their elected leaders are not tightening their belts."

The NR view of limited government is that the Security Exchange Commission takes the word of Wall Street and the Hedge Fund "Lords of Chaos", and says to these seniors who lost their homes and life savings sorry nothingcan bedone to recoup your losses. Just imagine what the condition of these seniors who lost everything would be without the populist social programs of Social Security and Medicare. I can here the NR crowd yelling, "Socalist! Socialist! Socialist!"

I still shake my head in disbelief hearing older Tea Party activists at rallies shouting, "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare and Social Security!"

Lowry believes that this combination of his self-proclaimed Palin economic populism, and her support for "America's role as a world power"( i.e neoconservative foreign policy) is just the right blend to get the populists on board the consevative bandwagon.

Populist-Nationalists should read the late Samuel Francis Revolution from the Middle and Kevin Phillips Post-Conservative America, and avoid chasing the faux anti-elite conservative white rabbit down the GOP sink hole.

[Nelson3]

Where have you gone, Mr. Gardenstate, our nation lifts its lonely eyes to you....

My thoughts sometimes ramble back to the first "conservative" book the "conservative" realm spat at me as a new subscriber -- Poisoned Ivy, by Benjamin Hart. Not a bad job if you can stomach the supposed maverick confessing to having been smitten by a negress classmate at Harvard!

His father, don'cha know, was a longtime National Review man and the only one of the two I can find in Wikipedia. His article there is fairly respectable till it allows in the very end, O. Henry-style, "Hart supported John Kerry in the 2004 election and Barack Obama in 2008</span>".
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I'm so grateful to NR -- it led me to Chronicles, which was then an often stellar compendium of brilliant rightism. Well, I learned a lot from Buckley's then-frisky irreverence, John Simon's majestic yet blatant movie reviews.... in that ACCENT! Let's be fair.

Now, Mr. Simon, quit being such a GROWNUP! Come along with the crowd, now, and say what everybody else is saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB3V3qyZiFM&amp;NR=1
Return of the Jedi Star Wars Nightline Discussion</span>

Am I boring you? Sorry -- it's past 1 AM but I've had a terrific day in the Cause and I NEED MORE PARTY.
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[gardenstate]

Jim Geharty, a member of the chattering class at National Review, has highlighted the economic populist appeal in Rick Santorum's presidential campaign. Eliminate corporate taxes and laud income inequality. Huh?

Is it any wonder that National Review is simply becoming a coffee table magazine of the Washington DC GOP establishment that most blue collar conservatives ignore.

From Geharty's The Campaign Stop where he believes Santorum should focus on South Carolina, "Still, Santorum’s agenda is staunch, outspoken social conservatism, a hawkish foreign policy, and a bit of economic populism (eliminate corporate taxes for the manufacturing sector, because it can easily relocate overseas, while the service industries can’t). Doesn’t that sound like a better fit for South Carolina than for more libertarian-minded New Hampshire?"

Geharty links to the following article as evidence of Santorum's economic populism, "Rick Santorum: Income inequality is fine. Opportunity inequality is not." http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.co...uality-is-not/