Rabid Jingoists Have Not Seized Control of the Republican Party
On Jacob Heilbrunn's "crocodile tears complaint about the waning of establishment Republicans on foreign policy," Peter Feaver, my brilliant mentor from my undergraduate days, says it better than I did a few days ago:
the entire piece betrays a more fundamental wrong-headedness. It wants to claim that there is a new Republican orthodoxy on foreign policy, and, of course, that the new orthodoxy is flawed and a rejection of the old Republican establishment. But the evidence it presents actually reveals something else: a rich panoply of debate among Republicans today and throughout the Cold War. Doubtless some of those positions were flawed and some of them are flawed today (put it this way, George Will and Bill Kristol cannot both be right about Afghanistan). But there is no orthodoxy and it is certainly not reflexively opposed to everything the Obama administration has attempted to do on national security. And, of course, neither is it reflexively anti-establishment.
Yep -- there's no ideological lock on GOP foreign policy. Perhaps there used to be. But there isn't now. Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney do not command the brains of every conservative with an ounce of pull who talks about international relations. These aren't incredibly marginal figures, to be sure. But they're not in the catbird seat. They're merely in the mix.
And, to be frank, the things semi-candidates like Palin and Romney have to say in 2010 about foreign policy must be taken for what they are: hype opportunities, thrown out to seize attention that's scattered and concentrated elsewhere. This is signaling, not policy. This is the political pre-season -- a realm with all the nuance and all the gravity of a guy in a floppy Uncle Sam suit handing out bumper stickers.
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Jul '10
Re: Rabid Jingoists Have Not Seized Control of the Republican Party
I wasn't allow access to the page you linked to, but I recognize Heilbrunn's name as among the lefties who march in jackboot synchronization. My guess he is a member in good standing of JournoList, now in slumber mode or appearing elsewhere in another form of conspiracy. So there is a good chance I'll pick up the meme in some other of the oddly-named mainstream media.
May '10
Re: Rabid Jingoists Have Not Seized Control of the Republican Party
Forget Heibrunn, Peter Feaver was the best Democrat in the GWB administration. He is (was?), I believe, a colleague of Cori Dauber. Maybe the last remaining Scoop Jackson Dem out there in 2005.