A Million Little Pieces

“He sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering.” Such is the judgment rendered on President Bush by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, whose words means something in Republican circles. So how did those circles respond?

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line thinks Noonan is being too tough. “Conservatives certainly have plenty to disagree with the Bush administration about,” he writes. “However … we have no right to consider ourselves victims. President Bush never presented himself as a traditional conservative. We supported him anyway, in large part I think because we understood that a traditional conservative would stand little chance of succeeding Bill Clinton, who had re-popularized activist government.”

Badger State conservative Sean Hackbarth at The American Mind also takes issue:

Bush was the campaigner who said he would lead on what he believed and felt was best for the country. Unlike the Clinton administration his wouldn’t be guided by polls. Judging by his low approval numbers the President isn’t listening to the public or his conservative base. It’s a little late to start complaining the administration is holding firm by saying “too bad.” Does Noonan want a President who constantly pandered to his base ignoring his own belief in what was best for the country?

More moderate Republicans, however, see things Noonan’s way. “Thank you for saying what so many Republicans are thinking right now, including yours truly,” says Pete Abel at Central Sanity. He continues:

And for the rest of you so-called Republicans, who are still inclined to label Ms. Noonan’s challenge and others like it as “left-wing blather,” get a grip. The party (in at least two senses of the term) is over. Turn out the lights. Leave the building. Then, when and while you’re gone, the rest of us will get back to work: redefining, reforming, and reviving this Party that originally stood for administrative competence; real security; an informed and cooperative foreign policy; fiscal restraint; and above all else, personal liberty and the freedom requisite to individual success and the pursuit of happiness.

Michael P.F. van der Galiën thinks that a single issue weighs heavily in the G.O.P. split:

• This entire immigration debate will hurt Bush more than I initially anticipated. Bush seems to alienate the conservative base, the very ones who brought him into power. Now, Bush and McCain et al. are effectively labeling those who do not support the immigration bill racists. One problem: the conservative base does not support the immigration bill. This means that Bush calls his most loyal supporters, the ones who stood by him during his entire presidency, even when it was obvious that he screwed up Iraq tremendously, racists.

Maybe. Or maybe not. “In considering Noonan’s main point,” writes Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice, “you could slice the immigration issue totally off, and you’d still have to note profound differences between this administration’s central ideology (to retain and expand political and executive branch power) and traditional Republican conservatives who insist upon following Barry Goldwater’ and Ronald Reagan’s cherished principles.”

Well, at least they agree on one thing, “I’m a uniter, not a divider” is one campaign slogan that hasn’t stood the test of time, even within its own party.

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No One Knows Who They Were, or What They Were Doing …

If any Manhattanites felt in touch with their their Inner Druid yesterday, Gotham City Insider explains why:

Manhattanhenge (also sometimes inaccurately refered to as Manhattan Solstice) is a biannual occurrence in which the setting sun aligns with the east-west streets of Manhattan’s main street grid. The term is derived from Stonehenge, at which the sun aligns with the stones on the solstices. It was coined in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. The dates of Manhattanhenge are usually May 28 and July 12 or July 13. The two corresponding mornings of sunrise right on the center lines of the Manhattan grid are approximately December 5 and January 8 (as with the solstices and equinoxes, the dates vary somewhat from year to year).

Remember when Democrats painted the G.O.P.’s supporters as heartless Wall Street plutocrats? John Harwood at the Washington Wire (scroll to bottom) points out that they might have to come up with a new caricature: “Democrats collected 75 percent of the $1.1 million in presidential campaign contributions by top hedge-fund executives in first quarter, according to Absolute Returns magazine and PoliticalMoneyLine…. Senate Banking chairman Dodd led with $347,000 received…. Most generous fund was Fortress Investment Group, which gave ex-employee Edwards $226,000.”

The antipodean blogger J.F. Beck informs us that Swedish authorities aren’t going to allow the blogosphere’s attack culture go unregulated, and Beck thinks this might be a good thing:

An official of Sweden’s Social Democrats, Peter Kennerfalk, will be investigated for harassment and defamation for blogging the following about a journalist originally from Poland:

“Like a drooling dog, chained to his kennel and waiting for his master to return with a bone, the Pole continues to spread his homespun theories about life in the country’s workplaces,” Kennerfalk wrote.

“But this rabble-rouser has never had any other ambition than to fill his wallet and bank accounts,” he continued.

The Liberal official who reported the offending comment was not amused:

“The use of this kind of rhetoric is more common on the left than on the right. But enough is enough. Kennerfalk’s text and the police report against him can serve as the starting point for a clean-up of left-wing rhetoric,” said Sundin.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal to me but Sundin is right about left-wing rhetoric needing a clean-up.

— Tobin Harshaw