George Will’s Take

He ends his latest column on a note of good sense:
The conservative ascendancy that was achieved in 1980 reflected a broad consensus favoring government more robust abroad and less ambitious at home — roughly the reverse of Tuesday’s consensus. But conservatives should note what their current condition demonstrates: Opinion is shiftable sand. It can be [...]

The Leper Colony

If your reading habits are anything like mine, the video of Carl Cameron telling Shepard Smith that Sarah Palin doesn’t know which countries are signatories to NAFTA, thinks Africa is a country, obstinately refused to prepare herself for her interview with Katie Couric (because who among us could name the periodicals we read without at [...]

Defacing Barry Goldwater’s Grave

Bill Kristol, always one to double-down on a mistake rather than concede an inch, now says that Sarah Palin is the next FDR. The resurrection of Franklin Roosevelt is, no doubt, indicative of the sort of conservative revival Robert Stacy McCain had in mind when he announced the creation of the “Sarah Party” a week [...]

Bush Revisionism

It’s already beginning, folks. But, my friend Jeremy Lott quickly and ably bats away the revisionists in today’s Politico.

In a Newsweek cover story titled “What Bush Got Right,” international editor Fareed Zakaria wrote that “blanket criticism of Bush misses an important reality,” for “wherever one stands” on his decision to invade Iraq, “the [Bush [...]

Where Bush Went Wrong

After losing control of the Senate and 30 House seats in 2006, the GOP is bracing for losses of six to nine in the Senate and two dozen to three dozen additional seats in the House.
If the party “were a dog food,” says Rep. Tom Davis, “they would take us off the shelf.”
Bush’s approval is [...]

A Pup Tent Party

For a glimpse into the reasons why the prospects for a revival of Republican fortunes anytime soon are dismal, have a look at John Podhoretz’s list of “10 reasons why McCain might win” (via Andrew Sullivan). For those readers who don’t have time to click “read more,” the executive summary is that every single item [...]

Prediction Time

My sense is that Obama will win the popular vote 52-48 percent, but since that’s also what the Evans-Novak Political Report is forecasting, I’ll make a more daring projection of 53-47 percent for the Democrat. Even that might be conservative, since I see little reason to think that undecideds (somewhere between 7 and 9 percent [...]

Party of Delusion

If the Republican party is going to recover from the well-earned defeat they have coming next week, it will require an honest assessment the reasons for their failure from conservative leaders and thinkers. I’ve seen little evidence that Republican-oriented conservatives are up to the task.
A good example is this post from Robert Stacy McCain, who [...]

Timely Nostalgia

TAC readers might enjoy my take on the late William F. Buckley Jr.’s Flying High, his memoir of the Goldwater era and early years of National Review. There are parallels between the Right described in Buckley’s book and that of today — both have been fractious, even severely so. Philosophical disagreements among conservatives in the [...]

Hart Break

Jeffrey Hart’s association with National Review dates back to 1962, but as Dan notes in an earlier post, the senior editor turned Obamacon was recently sent packing. This morning, he forwarded this anecdote from Harper’s. As it was with Reagan and the Democratic Party, Hart didn’t leave NR, it left him. The same apparently applied [...]