Insider vs. Outsider. Part 1

For years I refused to participate in political discourse. In the early 80's I loathed "Crossfire" because I did not subscribe to the left vs. right paradigm. Pat Buchanan was not an alternative voice. He was hostile to free trade and a proponent of executive clout. Members of the press all looked alike to me. The power strugggle was not left v. right. Not liberal v. conservative. Not Donkey v. Elephant. It was insider versus outsider. It still is.

I would grow even more cynical when Buchanan, the Beltway hack, would repackage himself as a political outsider. Ultimately he would prove to be as hostile to free trade as Ralph Nader. And yet, he developed a loyal following. Go figure.

At about the time Buchanan was gearing up for a presidential run, GOP apologist Fred Barnes wrote a landmark column in "The American Spectator" telling us to forget about small government conservatism. Big government conservatism is where its's at and we should not shy away from the label. It's all about reaping the spoils of war and procuring plum jobs for our more loyal supporters. It's all about patronage and our hacks are better than your hacks.

Long after Barnes ascends into Conservative Heaven (if that is not an oxymoron) his magnum opus will toll for thee. There is no unringing this bell. It is that rare moment where a deceiver shows his cards. Like a ranking administrator professing their loyalty to Karl Marx or their secret admiration for all things jihad. Yes, we suspect but until they come out and say it, we can only suspect. Barnes unwittingly dug a ditch between the social conservative and the fiscal conservative. That ditch is now a gulf.

It is interesting that the same publication that trumpeted moral bureaucracy would years later print another watershed column by Angelo Codevilla denouncing America's ruling class. Funny how one's perspective can change when one is run out of town on a rail. Has Emmett Tyrrell ssen the light? I doubt it.

How do we define the schism in the Republican Party? We could say that it's a battle between those who want a new ruling class and those who want no ruling class. Krauthammer, Noonan, Will, Rove, et al, meet the Tea Party. The party monarchists will have decide if they prefer the company of their fellow monarchists to the company of the unwashed masses.

For me, if the Obama Campaign trots out Karl Rove as their new political consultant, I will not so much as blink. A billion dollars will buy a ton of souls and the skills of the soulless. It might loook like betrayal but it really isn't. Everything we needed to know about the GOP establishment we learned from Fred Barnes two decades ago.