Frum is on a roll: The lone Republican intent on returning the party to respectability is a Canadian

[BurtWorm]

The American Republicans continue to have their heads up their asses. Long may they wave. :patriot:

The following is from one of David Frum's latest essays concerning his battles with the Americans in his party about its future as a political power. Personally, I think the GOP is too deep in bed with the devils it courted, the fringe right leftovers from the segregationist movement and their dominionist brethren and sistren, to regain power OR popularity. If the party's leaders ever shut up and start listening to Frum, Democrats might be in trouble. I don't think we need to worry about that for a long time.

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/93904/The_Limbaugh_schism

...What we are arguing about is the kind of party the GOP will be. Over just the past couple of weeks, Limbaugh has compelled apologies first from a Republican congressman, then from the chairman of the Republican National Committee, for criticizing him. He has extracted tributes praising him as a—if not “the”—leader of the party from the RNC chairman and the governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal. Not since the Republican wilderness years of 1993-1994 has Rush held such uncontested sway. But back then, Rush was content to play a supporting part. Now he has assumed—or been conceded—the starring role.

Back in the 1970s, on the eve of the great Republican victories of the 1980s and 1990s, we on the right aspired to displace America’s liberal governing elite with an elite of our own—“a counter-establishment” as journalist Sidney Blumenthal aptly described it. But our last experience of government was a disappointing one to say the least, and the whole problem of government seems to interest us less and less. Increasingly, we are vexed and motivated only by what we call “the culture.” It’s never quite clear what precisely we mean by that: maybe only the sum of all things that annoy conservative-minded people.

We are gradually shrinking from our former ambition—to govern—and taking our pleasure instead in alienation and complaint. Those journalists who cover the conservative world are surprised by how relieved and happy conservatives seem to be about having lost the 2008 election. No more irritating compromises, no more boring policy debates! We can recline into the pure assertion of conservative dogma, a job nobody does better than Rush Limbaugh himself. As Limbaugh told the CPAC crowd: We need no new policy ideas. Conservatism, he said, cannot be reshaped or reformed, and those who suggest otherwise must be “stamped out.” And who knows? That view may prevail among Republicans for some long time to come. But if it does, watch out. Just as the American left retreated from politics into the universities in the 1980s, so—if Rush has his way—will the American right retreat from politics into the airwaves in the 2000s.

For my part, I’ll adopt the justly famous philosophy of that anonymous American soldier who, upon reaching the front line at the Argonne just as the French army was giving way, exclaimed: “Retreat hell! We just got here.”