Paul Gottfried

October 27, 2008

Grant Havers in his response to my latest, roll-the-dice polemic made an excellent point, which I have also heard from my colleague Wes McDonald. Obama?s victory unfortunately may not rid the Right and the country of the neocon disease infecting the GOP and the American conservative movement. In fact there is no reason to think the defection of Ken Adelman to the Obama camp and the remarks from David Frum quoted by Richard Spencer will not be the beginning of a beeline being made by the usual suspects into the Obama administration. A column by Peggy Noonan syndicated today in the Wall Street Journal urges O, as he approaches victory, to ?govern as a moderate Democrat,? ?as Bill Clinton did? and as someone who is ?aware of the terrain.? Noonan questions, however, whether O is ?decisive? He will clearly need help ?when it comes to decisions that have to do with larger issues.? Can anyone guess which ?issues? specifically Noonan has in mind, and whom she would like giving advise to O, whom she reassures us is not an ?America-hating radical?? Peg is smoothing the way for the transmigration of ?conservatives? into the Obama administration. Although she warns against the Fairness Doctrine, she knows such medicine may not be necessary for dealing with her pals. By the time O is inaugurated, they should all be on board, give or take a few particularly noisy GOP loudmouths like Rush and Ann Coulter.

Another relevant observation from Wes is that the media and the Left will not be blaming the neocons for the trouble that O will inevitably encounter when he gets to work with his special interests and supermajority. The leftist media will aim their fire at the dumb Texan and reborn Christian W, who will become ?the Herbert Hoover for this generation of Democrats.? The neocons may not even sustain a scratch in these aerial raids because soon they?ll be ensconced in the Obama presidency while continuing to act as the Left’s preferred opposition.
The only way this may not happen is if Obama does exactly what Peg warns him not to do, that is, ?jumps toward reforms such as the speech-limiting Fairness Doctrine? and other things ?that will yield trouble and unneeded domestic arguments.? Here?s hoping that my favorite troublemakers will do this and more!