Neil Gabler Fails at American Political History 101
Neal Gabler is in the mood to whip up his own version of the history of the modern conservative movement. It’s typical of Leftists who don’t get conservatives or really want to.
Gabler forgets how William F. Buckley kicked out the McCarthy’s heirs, The John Birch Society, from the conservative movement. Doing so doesn’t fit the theme of a paranoid political party
He recalls the Reagan optimism yet declares that unique to the 40th President. However he fails to acknowledge Republicans from all wings of the party seek it. But again that wouldn’t fit Gabler’s theme of a party winning the White House again and again by scaring the crap out of voters.
The biggest flaw in Gabler’s thesis is how parochial he claims it is. Peer behind President-elect Obama’s “Hope” and “Change” facade and you’ll see similar scare tactics Gabler accuses Republicans of mastering. Obama was running against a “third Bush term.” Many of Obama’s online supporters declared Sen. McCain “John McSame.” Democrats preyed upon economic anxiety to say America couldn’t afford another four years of Bush-McCain policies (not that such an animal ever existed).
What Gabler is describing are contrast politics that have been with the nation since her beginning. Parties have been trying to look better with voters by tearing the other side down since the vicious battle between John Adams’ Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans. With Gabler he tries to turn the phenomenon into something uniquely evil by attaching a nefarious character, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, onto it.
Gabler should stick to subjects he knows something about: Walt Disney and bashing Rush Limbaugh. He’s one of those typical Leftists who sees conservatives through a National Geographic prism. They’re strange creatures with unique customs. When was the last time he paged through an issue of National Review? When was the last time he wandered through wide stretches of the conservative blogosphere? Has Gabler recently been into a conservative Christian megachurch? Judging from this essay the answers are “no.” He’d do well to learn some history in George Nash’s The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America.
There’s more from JammieWearingFool.
“The GOP’s McCarthy Gene” [via memeorandum]
[…] Wingnuts are in denial, of course. One says, Gabler forgets how William F. Buckley kicked out the McCarthy’s heirs, The John Birch Society, from the conservative movement. Doing so doesn’t fit the theme of a paranoid political party. […]