How To Be A Conservative, By Fox

By Rod Dreher • September 21, 2012, 2:03 PM

Fox’s Chris Wallace has read Peggy Noonan out of conservatism:

In an interview with POLITICO today, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace questioned Peggy Noonan’s “conservative bona fides,” following her recent editorials criticizing of Mitt Romney’s campaign.

“Peggy Noonan has bashed George W. Bush, based Mitt Romney, wasn’t crazy about McCain. So, [her] conservative bona fides I’m not sure I take too seriously,” Wallace told POLITICO’s Patrick W. Gavin. “[Columnists] like Peggy Noonan, sometimes they’re New York City’s idea of conservatives.”

TAC’s Dan McCarthy nails it:

Chris Wallace is as plain as can be: Fox defines “conservative” as “supports whomever the GOP nominates.”

— Daniel McCarthy (@ToryAnarchist) September 21, 2012

Whence the slur “RINO” for anyone on the Right who questions the groupthink. It’s really something to see how reflexively the Right loves to hunt heretics. Peggy Noonan may be wrong in her judgment of the Romney campaign, but see, Chris Wallace is not saying that she’s wrong. He’s saying that by criticizing the GOP nominee, she proves she’s Not One Of Us, and therefore ought not be listened to. Argumentum ad hominem may be a logical fallacy, but to the hive mind of movement conservativism, it’s an epistemological strategy.

UPDATE: Daniel Larison, also right:

It’s important to compare their reaction to the campaign incompetence’s to the one that movement conservative activists and bloggers have typically had. Where Douthat, Noonan, et al. are willing to acknowledge blundering by the candidate in the hopes of getting him to stop doing more of it, the latter are praising him for his mistakes, egging him on to commit more, and pretending that the election can be won by doing even more of what Romney has been doing in the last week. The former recognize incompetence when they see it and want to eliminate it. Predictably, the campaign has reacted by rejecting their advice and thereby confirming the judgment that it is incompetent.

But … but … everybody knows that these RINOs only want to get invitations to Georgetown cocktail parties!

Posted in Conservatism, Media, Presidential politics, Republicans. Tagged Chris Wallace, conservatism, Mitt Romney, Peggy Noonan, RINO.

43 Responses to How To Be A Conservative, By Fox

Brian says:

September 21, 2012 at 2:21 pm

This is all so, so silly. Approximately zero percent of folks here care one whit about Wallace, Fox, Noonan, or even Romney, while we’re at it. These sorts of posts seem like nothing but the usual pointless complaining that AmCon has such a small audience.

But, just for grins, I clicked through to the link, and what do I see but this: “During today’s interview, part of POLITICO’s “Turn The Table” series, Gavin asked Wallace whether conservative opinion makers who have criticized Romney — such as Noonan, David Brooks of The New York Times, and the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol — had influence on conservatives around the country or were simply participating in an “inside-the-Beltway parlor game.” ”

Doesn’t this context radically change the meaning of the quote? I mean, what do you expect in response to that question–”Actually, Pat, conservatives in places like Ohio, North Carolina, etc., are just hanging on Peggy Noonan’s and David Brooks’ every word!”

Such a response would be ten times more delusional than his fairly anodyne response.
Fran Macadam says:

September 21, 2012 at 2:30 pm

Fox News is the political propaganda arm of corporate wealth. Follow the money – back to Murdoch. He doesn’t pay unless you play.

Glenn Beck lasted there only as long as the proper oxen were gored. The moment any criticism was laid where it belonged – because at some point Glenn fancied himself an independent force for truth instead of a useful paid dissembler – he was gone.

Mitt’s their candidate for the 1%, that’s all.

Since there really are conservatives outside the 1% they’re not going to be treated kindly by Murdoch’s Minions when they notice the interests of the many often aren’t the same as those of the few.

Conservatism really is about more than keeping the financial aristocracy in power, but that’s not how the money men see it.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

September 21, 2012 at 2:38 pm

Noonan et al. are criticizing Romney, for being Romney, the the Republican party leadership, for being the Republican party leadership. They are losing by being themselves. If Noonan doesn’t like it, she should have put her candidacy forward to be the nominee.
Fatherpep@gmail.com says:

September 21, 2012 at 2:42 pm

Peggy Noonan has gotten a bit full of herself. Oh, that breathless voice, sharing knowledge otherwise available to a chosen few. As for the Fox network, check the ratings folks, especially compared to CNN and the other one whose name shall be uttered.
Will in Mississippi says:

September 21, 2012 at 2:51 pm

Two very different groups draw the almost hysterical ire of movement conservatives. Establishment Republicans in politics, government, and sometimes the mainstreat media face loud charges of being “Republican in Name Only” that just don’t scan on futher reflection. Paleoconservatives in academia and politics just get blacklisted and demonized as the second coming of Hitler’s blackshirts. The outrage both groups arouse seem quite disproportionate and I wonder what about such very different tribes sparks so vehement a reaction.
sd says:

September 21, 2012 at 2:53 pm

To be fair though, who doesn’t want to get invited to cocktail parties. I mean come on – cocktails!
Adam says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:06 pm

I’m glad we’re at the point where ratings based on the lowest common denominator constitutes success.
c matt says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:09 pm

Mitt’s their candidate for the 1%, that’s all.

And at the rate he’s going, that’s about the percentage of the vote he will get.
EngineerScotty says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:26 pm

At this rate, there will soon be more RINOs outside the tent than in it, at which point the tent can be set (metaphorically, of course) on fire.
Sam M says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:30 pm

Let me ask you a question, though: Is there ANY belief or tendency that you believe to be absolutely essential for someone to be considered a conservative? If not… what does the label mean at all?

A while back, I think there was a conversation here about a bedrock set of beliefs someone has to adhere to in order to be a legitimate Christian. Or maybe it was Catholic. So yeah, go ahead and support abortion and this or that or the other thing… just don’t act surprised when someone questions your bonafides. You think the Resurrection is a sham? Fine. But you probably aren’t “Catholic.”

Is there a corollary in politics?

Is ther any person, anywhere, who you would feel comfortable saying, “Wow, that dude ain’t really conservative.” If for some bizarre reason Al Sharpton moved to a new district in order to have a shot at winning a congressional seat, and figured that the best way to garner votes would be to cast himself as a conservative democrat… would you feel comfortable saying, “He’s not really a conservative, guys”?

Is Olympia Snowe a “conservative”? Are there any limits? Does the RINO label ever apply?

I am a small-l libertarian on a lot of issues. I am not much of a party guy, but if someone like Mitt Romney or mark Krikorian were to seek to use the “libertarian” mantle to get a Tea Party endorsement or a job at Cato, could I call that person a LINO? Or would that be heretic hunting?
Michael Sheridan says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:39 pm

@Brian, I think everyone can probably agree that the number of people who consider themselves conservative upon whom David Brooks has any influence whatsoever is minuscule. But the others Wallace named are not cut from the same cloth. Sure, only neo-cons really pay any attention to The Weekly Standard and William Kristol, but there are still a lot of neo-cons in this country. As for Peggy Noonan, she may be an inside-the-Beltway hack, but she writes for the WSJ, the leading conservative newspaper in this country and she will always remind you (should you somehow forget) that her Beltway was the Reagan Beltway. That still has some cachet even with most of the Tea Party crowd. When Wallace dismissed her as unworthy of attention from heartland conservatives because she has criticized Mitt Romney and George W. Bush and “wasn’t crazy about” John McCain, wasn’t he also describing Rush Limbaugh? The exact same thing could also be said of him. Somehow, though, I don’t see Mike Wallace going there.
cecelia says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:40 pm

It’s really something to see how reflexively the Right loves to hunt heretics.

which is why I doubt an “civil war” if Romney loses – to many groupthinkers or out of it beltway types to generate original ideas

the ironic thing about Fox News criticizing anyone for criticizing Romney is that Murdoch is quoted as sayinbg he isn’t for Romney
Pacific moderate says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:44 pm

Isn’t this what happens in, you know, communist countries, where no one questions the Great Leader?
Charles Cosimano says:

September 21, 2012 at 3:51 pm

Well, my weekly barber poll (what folks are saying at the barber shop) has Romney gaining from what he said. Considering how well it called the Wisconsin recall election…

Ok, I’m having fun. But what I’m hearing is the folks upset with Romney being folks who were not going to vote for him anyway and the folks who like what he said people who would never vote for Obama.
Glenn Vanderburg says:

September 21, 2012 at 4:03 pm

I’ve begun referring to Republicans as “CINOs”.

Not that that will help anything, but it make me feel slightly better.
Franklin Evans says:

September 21, 2012 at 5:10 pm

I was going to compose a scathing remark using “The Emperor’s New Clothes” as a jumping-off point, but since there are women and TV broadcasts involved, I decided not to… ahem.
Fred says:

September 21, 2012 at 5:41 pm

Peggy Noonan, (R) – Chardonnay, had the courage to call Palin a “joke” in the fall of 2008, when people like Rich Lowry and Rush Limbaugh were in full starburst mode.
Ben, Okla. City says:

September 21, 2012 at 6:59 pm

God, I wish I could take some of these youngsters back to the early 1980s and show them the real Reagan. Not the comic book super hero, but the real guy…who cut deals, and negotiated, and compromised, and had setbacks.

Peggy Noonan is a legit Reaganite. If you’re saying she ain’t Conservative, then he isn’t either.
Fran Macadam says:

September 21, 2012 at 7:37 pm

Mike Wallace isn’t going anywhere, anymore.
Floridan says:

September 21, 2012 at 7:43 pm

“Captain Romney, we’re taking on water and some if the crew are abandoning ship.”

“Don’t worry, they’re only rats”.
Derek Benjamin says:

September 21, 2012 at 7:52 pm

Right it’s the conservative’s insisting that their putative elites at least pretend not to despise them that’s like a communist country not a national press that actively protects the president from criticism. The guys supposedly leading these witch hunts don’t claim to guardians of free speech like Pravda of the Hudson does so I give them the same pass the liberal readers give the NYT and LAT (which let us not forget refuses to release their footage of Obama speaking to Palestinian activists).
Dan Phillips says:

September 21, 2012 at 8:20 pm

I don’t doubt that Wallace meant what Rod says he meant, but the Noonan column was just awful. (I’m specifically referring to the one from earlier this week.) If her conservative bona fides are to be questioned it is for the content of the article, not the criticism of Romney. The whole article was big this and big that. And we need to have a national conversation about what we want the government to do, blah, blah, blah… Once you wade through all her maudlin babble she was making the same point the Brooks, Frum, etc. crowd has made 1000s of times. Essentially “All this talk about limited government is boob bait for flyover country yahoos and just isn’t serious. Serious politicians need to come to terms with big government and learn to love and work with it.”

Since we are on the subject of criticism of mainstream conservatism in a couple of other threads, this is just the kind of criticism that TAC should distance itself from lest they just get lumped in with the Brooks/Frum/ Noonan crowd. Instead, what is really needed is criticism that is unmistakably from the right.
Rod Dreher says:

September 21, 2012 at 8:33 pm

Dan, I agree that it’s perfectly legit to criticize Noonan on the substance of her column (or lack thereof). Chris Wallace’s criticism was, “Well, she’s not really a conservative anyway.” Which is lame as hell.
MikeS says:

September 21, 2012 at 8:34 pm

I think these labels have outlived their usefulness. Discuss individual issues case by case, not whether it is “liberal” or “conservative”. For example if you want to decriminalize marijuana, is that liberal or conservative, and who cares? Debate the issue itself.
J says:

September 21, 2012 at 9:13 pm

Let me ask you a question, though: Is there ANY belief or tendency that you believe to be absolutely essential for someone to be considered a conservative? If not… what does the label mean at all?

Dan Larison pointed out some time ago that de facto an insider/outsider structure and operational logic is more vital and indispensable to Conservatism than any principles or policies.

To me the operational distinction is that conservatism is a survival/domination strategy largely embraced by those with relatively large wealth/power but low creative ability. Whereas liberalism a success/accomplishment strategy largely embraced by those with relatively little wealth/power but high creative ability.
David J. White says:

September 21, 2012 at 10:15 pm

“Captain Romney, we’re taking on water and some if the crew are abandoning ship.”

Sounds like the candidate of the Red party has just revealed that he is wearing a red shirt. And we all know what happens to them …
Karen says:

September 21, 2012 at 10:22 pm

I don’t know what Peggy Noonan believes, or if she is “conservative” or not (although I do suspect she likes going to B-list Washington DC cocktail parties – who doesn’t!). It’s hard to tell from her self-conscious, gingerbread writing what she is thinking about other than how her adjectives look on the page. However, I do know she is tiresome. Or as Jesse Walker once remarked, “If the best thing Reagan ever did was to pardon Merle Haggard, the worst was to saddle us with Peggy Noonan.”
Ampersand says:

September 21, 2012 at 10:34 pm

‘Essentially “All this talk about limited government is boob bait for flyover country yahoos and just isn’t serious. Serious politicians need to come to terms with big government and learn to love and work with it.”’

Of course they do–they have to, as both sides love big government. Just different kinds (though there’s certainly a lot of overlap love for SS and Medicare). Corporate subsidies and morality-influencing and the surveillance state for the right, and judgment-free safety-nets and aggressive civil/equal rights protection for the left.

If the Republicans seriously came out and said they were going to dismantle SS and Medicare and other big government monoliths, they’d get demolished from all sides. The farmers alone would obliterate them. The only people who don’t like big government are libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives, and I don’t think they could get a significant percentage of the vote.

Incidentally, while Charles has his barbershop, I like to pay attention to yard signs. I live in a rural red state (with a bit of a purplish tinge, but not much), and in ’08, it was a three-way split between Obama, McCain, and Paul. This year, I’ve seen several Obama signs, several Paul ones…and not a single Romney sign. Nowhere near as many signs as the previous election.
William Dalton says:

September 22, 2012 at 12:18 am

If his head wasn’t buried in the Fox cocoon, where Mitt Romney passes for a conservative, he would know that here in the hinterlands, Romney, McCain and George W. Bush were not known as conservatives even before they captured their GOP nominations, and everything they did thereafter has proved that they were, like their fathers, Rockefeller Republicans to a man. I guess that’s what, in New York, passes as conservative – you know, where pro-abortion politicians like Rudy Giuliani and Joe Lieberman are considered to be “attractive” to conservative voters.

The architects of “compassionate conservatism” and the “Global War on Terror” are men whose conservative credentials have already run out and whose hold on the Republican Party is about to be lost.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

September 22, 2012 at 1:14 am

I would think a good generic or clinical definition of a conservative would begin with the notion that there is something good about life as we currently know it, and that it needs to be conserved.

Then we need to discuss, what is it that is worth conserving, and what are we open to changing?

That’s where who has the right to call themselves a conservative generally breaks down.

My mother was a self- described conservative. Fiscally, that means she favored balanced budgets, or, prudent borrowing with a plan to pay it back. Not opposed to Keynesian methods if we are on the edge of a Depression, but definitely not interested in letting the banks take her savings and pour them into some dubious investment scheme, that under Glass-Steagall they wouldn’t have been allowed to indulge in.

She has been deeply embarrassed by the succession of Republican administrations since 1980 indulging in deficit spending.

She does not believe in government interference in individual decisions… thus, she has been pro-choice all her life.

Now, all you big-spending, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” big intrusive government, don’t invest in infrastructure, I want my cake NOW, “conservatives,” tell us what the word means to YOU.
M_Young says:

September 22, 2012 at 2:47 am

“Peggy Noonan, (R) – Chardonnay, had the courage to call Palin a “joke” in the fall of 2008,”

I actually agreed with Noonan at the time (IIR her reaction to the Palin announcement was ‘it’s over, it’s over’). But as the campaign went on Palin won we over. She was the only candidate with the what they call in the military ‘situational awareness’ to realize that Russia was back in the game (Putin, bombers, ugly head), and a pragmatic enough politician to negotiate the deal which gave Alaskans a better deal on their oil rights. (California gets oil revenues too, but they disappear into the maw of government — give me a check any day). Too bad she became a bit Foxified. I still remember her ‘press conference’ the night of the election. A Japanese reporter asked her if she had a message for ‘the people of Japan’. She chuckled, then said ‘keep buying that wild Alaskan seafood’. Serving her people and state to the last.
M_Young says:

September 22, 2012 at 2:55 am

It’s not like Democrats/’the Left’ dont have the same mechanisms. It’s too bad vdare is blocked for fundraising, because there is a great article on Matt Taibbi’s very hedged, very brief wrestling with whether immigration was all that good in Rolling Stone. He dared question the wisdom of giving instant citizenship — and subsequent access to benefits — to the children of Dominican girls who board planes for the US at 8.5 months pregnant was good policy. He was beaten up so badly that he declared about 2 weeks later he would never write on immigration again.
Sam M says:

September 22, 2012 at 8:37 am

“I would think a good generic or clinical definition of a conservative would begin with the notion that there is something good about life as we currently know it, and that it needs to be conserved.”

You don’t think self-described liberals believe this?

We hammer OWS for being incoherent and not policing the ranks. When conservatives try to police the ranks we call it heretic hunting.

Politics is hard.
PA15017 says:

September 22, 2012 at 8:44 am

Kinda agree with Brian — Wallace answered the question accurately. Nobody who uses the word “conservative” to describe Fox, talk radio, etc. would ever be influenced by David Brooks or Peggy Noonan. And that’s MOST people. He’s not “excommunicating” these writers — they don’t belong to begin with.
M_Young says:

September 22, 2012 at 10:22 am

I would think a good generic or clinical definition of a conservative would begin with the notion that there is something good about life as we currently know it, and that it needs to be conserved.

Okay, Siarlys, I’d start with the population, its demographics. I’m a demographic conservative, which is why I oppose mass immigration, particularly mass immigration that has no relationship to the historical America.

She does not believe in government interference in individual decisions… thus, she has been pro-choice all her life.

Would she support my individual decision not to rent my property to a black family, or serve blacks in my restaurant, or employ blacks at my place of business. Those after all are individual decisions. Yes, they affect other human beings, but so does abortion.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

September 22, 2012 at 11:39 am

Intelligent questions M_Young, let me see if I can give equally intelligent counter-points. (I may be voting for Obama, but I don’t assume everyone who likes Buchanan is an incorrigible troglodyte, or whatever the epithet du jour is. If 2016 comes down to Hillary Clinton or Andrew Cuomo, I may be voting for Gary Johnson).

I recall in 1968 discussing the impending Open Housing law with my mother. There were meetings about it at our church, in the western suburbs of Chicago. Those Presbyterians who didn’t want niggers moving into their suburb generally clustered outside the church, rather than coming into the meeting, because, as my mother observed, “its not a Christian position to take.”

As it happens, most such laws do not apply to housing in a building of four or fewer units, one of which is owner-occupied. I thought then, and I think now, that this is a wise line to draw. The more up close and personal these things are, the more Barry Goldwater is correct that you simply can’t correct these things by legislation.

However, everyone needs a place to live. The more large scale and commercial things are, the less individual preference and prejudice has a valid place. If everyone owned enough property to support themselves, and taking a job truly was a voluntary option, I’d support your position right down the line. But it ain’t so.

Public accommodations have ALWAYS been subject to customs and laws that insured service to all who travel the road, barring egregious misbehavior toward proprietors or other guests. If state laws could REQUIRE racial separation, its a little late to claim that federal laws cannot prohibit the practice. Jim Crow was imposed by statute, far beyond what individual preference indulged in, so it was necessary and proper to undo the evil by bending the law the other way.

But, the term “conservative” did take a hit due to the fact that consigning individuals to standardized racial identities, and white supremacy, were the status quo, and therefore something to be either “conserved” or radically uprooted.

As to abortion, I’ve said many times, there is no debate more difficult to resolve than one where the premise of one side is “this is a human being” while the other side says “no its not.” My mother believes that as long as the fetus is INSIDE another person’s body, it is not for The State to tell her she must carry it. I’m willing to say that by the 20th week (a little earlier than the “quickening” standard applied by the Supreme Court based on the state of medical knowledge in 1973), by the 20th week there is sufficient development of the system of organs that biologically defines a human being, sufficient evidence of cognition, sufficient ability to survive outside the womb without artificial life support, that removal should be considered a delivery, not an abortion.

Demographic conservative… that would make more sense if America had EVER had a single standard throughout its history. Benjamin Franklin complained about “Palatine boors” (German immigrants), Anglo Protestants complained about Irish Catholic immigrants, later successors complained about Jewish, slavic, Italian, Syrian, Lebanese, Chinese… But by the time you or I were born, all of the above were part of the demography of America. (Incidentally, I have two grandparents fresh off the boat around 1905, another whose own grandparents immigrated in the 1850s, and a grandmother whose ancestors have mostly been around since the American Revolution or earlier.)

To value diversity doesn’t mean we have to open our national borders to everyone who wants to come in, but what exactly you seek to conserve is, historically speaking, a moving target. Equally important, it was the most blue-blooded conservatives who sponsored each wave of mass immigration, the better to put the immigrants to work in their factories. Plus, once land was taken away from the previous occupants, there was at one time a lot of empty space to fill.

Sam_M on the other hand… liberals can be quite conservative about what they DON’T want to change. E.g., “don’t overturn Roe v. Wade could be considered a highly conservative decision at this point. But I was not talking about “policing the ranks” of a bold new initiative. I was talking about conserving what already exists. I was trying to back up from the nose-to-the-grindstone catfight over who gets to call themselves a conservative, and get to the root of what, if any, objective definition the word “conservative” might have.

When I don’t simply say “none of the above” I define myself as politically libertarian, economically conservative, and culturally conservative. There is plenty of creative tension between those three standards, but then, there is in real life also. That is why people get sick of ideologues, sooner or later.
Ampersand says:

September 22, 2012 at 11:40 am

‘The architects of “compassionate conservatism” and the “Global War on Terror” are men whose conservative credentials have already run out and whose hold on the Republican Party is about to be lost.’

Lost to whom, if you don’t mind my asking? The TP types? I’m trying to imagine how a farther-right party would attract more of the vote, instead of less, and I’m having a hard time seeing it.
Dan Phillips says:

September 22, 2012 at 12:13 pm

“Of course they do–they have to, as both sides love big government.”

Which is precisely why more authentic conservative voices are needed.
Siarlys Jenkins says:

September 22, 2012 at 2:26 pm

A compassionate conservative sees a homeless person on the street and leads him (or her) to a tax shelter.
William Dalton says:

September 22, 2012 at 5:31 pm

“Lost to whom, if you don’t mind my asking? The TP types? I’m trying to imagine how a farther-right party would attract more of the vote, instead of less, and I’m having a hard time seeing it.”

Lost to us Ron Paul types, if you don’t mind my indulging in optimistic thinking. Dr. Paul was the only candidate this year who offered a thought out and defensible alternative to the platform of Bush, Romney, Santorum, et. al. And, yes, the Tea Party, which originated in the first Ron Paul moneybomb in 2007, will need to return there to find its moorings and be anything more than an animated mob propelled by discontent.

Conservatives used to be the ones who, unlike liberals, were accused of being moved too much by their heads and not by their hearts. It is time to return to those days.
James says:

September 22, 2012 at 10:09 pm

@Ben, Okla. City

Amen.
Sands says:

September 22, 2012 at 11:27 pm

M_Young,

I think a more appropriate term would be ‘demographic reactionary.’ I believe you, like me, would like a return to 1925-1965 type of immigration restriction.
Clamdigger says:

September 23, 2012 at 1:34 pm

“I oppose mass immigration, particularly mass immigration that has no relationship to the historical America. ”

Wow! What is the ‘historical’ America? The native Americans who lived throughout?

The Pilgrims? The Puritans? They were very different. The followers of Roger William who was kicked out of Mass. Bay Colony?

The settlers of the Virginia and the Carolinas? The ‘imported’ slave help from Africa?

The Quaker’s of Pennsylvania?

Or, those from Germany princeling territories, also in PA and the near mid-west?

The Irish fleeing the Famine and British rule (and the mass arrival of Catholocism).

The arrival of the Italians, and other Europeans?

The recent past arrivals of the Vietnamese, who followed brethren from China, Japan, Korea?

Or, (as I am probably guessing here), the ‘mass’ immigration from Mexico, Latin America, and the like. The Somalis who settle in Maine and Minnesota? Or the muslims in Dearborn, MI and elsewhere.

Ah, historical America. That’s our beauty (at least to me)…we have so many. And for the most part we get along. Perhaps the ‘melting pot’ term we grew up with was / is rather simplistic – but that’s what it is!