THE LATEST FULMINATIONS FROM THE SELF-APPOINTED ARBITERS OF CONSERVATIVE IDEALS

12/7/07

Here is a letter I just sent to The Wall Street Journal. Of course, the Journal won’t print it; most of the letters that The Wall Street Journal deems worthy of publishing would serve equally as well as the answer to a high school civics question, viz:

“Compare and contrast the greatness of Presidents George Washington and George W. Bush. On second thought, forget the “contrast” portion of this question. After all, how can one draw contrasts between the two presidents whose transcendent greatness is their most distinguishing characteristic?”

but I digress.

My letter was sent in response to a 12/7/07 article by Kim Strassel. In that article, Ms. Strassel trots out the usual laundry list of complaints of self-described conservatives from various Wall Street precincts about Mr. Huckabee: He raised taxes several times while governor of Arkansas (as Ronald Reagan did in California), favors a tougher stance on illegal immigration, is not gung-ho for every “free trade” agreement that comes down the pike, and, in general, is not completely beholden to the whims and wishes of corporate America.

The point of the below letter is not to support Mike Huckabee. While I find many of Mr. Huckabee’s policy stands and personal traits attractive, I am not a Huckabee supporter. The overriding point of the letter is that The Wall Street Journal, or any of the self-appointed arbiters of all things conservative ought to be awfully careful before they question someone’s fealty to conservative principles:

Letters to the Editor
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty St.
New York, NY 10281
Wsj.ltrs@wsj.com

12/7/07

In her 12/7/07 Opinion piece questioning the conservative credentials of Mike Huckabee, Kim Strassel closes with “…Republican voters need to understand they are signing up for a whole new brand of “conservatism.”

It is curious that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, or Kim Strassel, if she was working there then, did not warn conservatives in 2000 that, by voting for George W. Bush and a Republican congress, they were signing up for “a whole new brand of ‘conservatism,’” a “conservatism” that has come to include:

--budget busting spending on pork barrel projects and other non-entitlements
--creation of a whole new entitlement that cements the Medicare program’s primacy in the coveted “most likely to bust the budget” category
--federalization of education standards
--complete surrender in the effort to control our borders
--the further decimation of manufacturing in this country as the GOP’s corporate masters search the globe for the cheapest possible labor, regardless of the consequences for the health and safety of American consumers
--a foreign policy that can best be described as the government’s placing its substantial proboscis into people’s lives on a global scale
--an alarmingly cavalier attitude regarding the government’s taking what is most sacred from some of our best and brightest young citizens: their lives, and
--generally, anything that serves to increase the wealth of the corporate plutocrats that the modern Republican Party exists to serve.


Mark Quinn
Naperville, IL