The Bankruptcy Of The Nation And Conservatism
By Cliff Kincaid
November 7, 2008
Page 2 of 3
The secretive financial hedge funds, such as those run by John A. Paulson and George Soros, who made $3.7 billion and $2.9 billion in 2007 respectively, also deserve serious scrutiny.
Meanwhile, even before the election results were in, Kimberly A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal was urging the Republicans (web site) "to start elevating the new generation of reformers - folks like Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor or Wisconsin's Paul Ryan" in the House. She called them intellectuals, never mentioning the fact that they backed the Wall Street bailout that her colleague, Stephen Moore of the Journal's editorial page, now admits was a big mistake. "I want to apologize," Moore said. "I drank the Kool-aid."
Cantor and Ryan, a member of the House Budget Committee, were good conservatives until they drank the Kool-aid and backed the bailout. Now they have lost their credibility on fiscal issues.
Of course, there were a lot of Kool-aid drinkers in Congress, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, Minority Whip Roy Blunt, Cantor, and House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam of Florida. However, in the end, most House Republicans opposed the bailout, objecting to its socialist nature and questioning whether it would even work. By any objective measure, they were right. It hasn't "stabilized" anything.
This is critical to note: all of the House Republican leaders, including Cantor, Putnam,
Blunt, and Boehner, supported the bailout. But they couldn't get a majority of House Republicans to support them.
Putnam has now resigned as chairman of the House Republican Conference, (web site) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee who opposed the bailout, will run for that post.
Blunt may resign, and Cantor is said to want that post. Boehner says he will seek to remain in his position. On the Senate side, Republican Leader Senator Mitch McConnell not only voted for the bailout but ran for re-election on a platform of bringing home the federal pork to his constituents. He has also lost his credibility on spending issues.
In desperation, conservative radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham touts former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as a source of new ideas. But he is hardly a profile in courage. Gingrich was against the bailout plan until, on September 29, he issued a statement in favor of it. Then, in an article for Human Events on October 7, he called it "bad" and stated, "If Senator McCain is not prepared to separate himself from the Bush-Paulson economic program, he has no opportunity to win. The country is deeply fed up with the Bush presidency and angry about the Paulson bailout."
Before it became fashionable to advocate more oil drilling, Gingrich was appearing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an Al Gore-financed global warming ad. Until gas prices started rising, Gingrich had been an advocate of "green conservatism" and was proposing a Gore-like "Contract with the Earth."
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