Tapscott's Copy Desk - Me, Too, Republicans are smothering the GOP

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Me, Too, Republicans are smothering the GOP

POSTED April 16, 7:02 PM

Winston Churchill put it best when he said of appeasement that it is nothing more than bribing the alligator to eat you last. Churchill was referring to Hitler and the Nazis and their designs on conquering the world.

But the principle he enunciated is equally valid in the context of fighting all forms of virulent statism, from the mosque-state extremists of the Jihad to the environmental fanatics intent upon using global warming as the pretext for imposing a soul-less, unaccountable bureaucratic tyranny.

So what has sparked this observation, you ask? Check out President Bush's Rose Garden speech today proposing new steps by government "to put our nation on a path to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of our greenhouse gas emissions."

The key assumption underlying Bush's approach is seen in what he said in the paragraph just prior to the one where the above quote appeared. There, Bush framed the essential issue (and note that he referred throughout his speech to the problem as "climate change," rather than global warming, a term that is rapidly losing its credibility with the public):

"Climate change involves complicated science and generates vigorous debate. Many are concerned about the effect of climate change on our environment. Many are concerned about the effect of climate change policies on our economy. "

Not a word about the fact the public debate on global warming/climate change has undergone a radical transformation during his seven years in the White House, most notably in recent months as the public has become more familiar with facts like the 10-year decline in global temperatures.

In other words, just as the tide of the debate has begun to turn from the rhetorical terrorism of advocates claiming "there is no longer any debate about global warming" to a more sober and fact-based assessment, Bush concedes the basic argument to the alarmists and statists And he tries to appease them with a package of half-measures that undercut his ability to oppose the inevitable demands to go much further, especially after he is out of the White House.

With his speech today, Bush has handed the global warming extremists a priceless gift by enabling them to claim "even Bush agrees with us now." For a more extensive and utterly devastating critique of the specifics of the Bush initiative, check out this post on Human Events by Chris Horner.

What Bush is doing on this issue is classic "Me, Too, Republicanism" - Offer a white flag on the issue but try to pretty it up by proposing a slower pace of change. Bush is returning to the political mentality of the old Eastern GOP Establishment exemplified by Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller and the "Modern Republicanism" of the Eisenhower years.

The essence of MTR - or, to use a more contemporary acronym, Republican-In-Name-Only (RINO) - is the idea that the only way Republicans can win elections is by promising the same things the liberal Democrats promise but with patrionizing assurances of doing it more efficiently. It's promising the Great Society or New Deal on the cheap.

Ronald Reagan heartily rejected that kind of thinking in all of his presidential campaigns and succinctly described the foundation of the conservative alternative to the welfare state when he declared in his first inaugural address that "government is not the solution, government is the problem."

That is the basic truth statists of all stripes refuse to concede - more government always means less individual liberty. This is because, as Reagan said earlier in his career, the Founders "knew that governments don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose."

The MTR/RINOs have been undermining the conservative cause in Congress and the White House for decades, usually by voting with Democrats for "moderate" proposals that at best merely slow the rate of expansion of government. Current exemplars of this breed are senators like Jim Jeffords (who finally left the party in 2001), Olympic Snowe, Arlen Specter, Lamar Alexandar, etc.

The MTR/RINOs presently make up about half of the GOP ranks in the Senate and around 30 votes among the GOP minority in the House. They are sufficiently strong to regularly frustrate most attempts of conservatives to restrain the growth of government power, taxes, regulation and spending.

I've been involved in the American public policy debate since the night in 1964 when Reagan delivered The Speech. As long as I can remember, these people who keep the GOP shackled with their MTR/RINOs nostrums bear a major responsibility for the success of Democrats in protecting and expanding the Liberal welfare state, and thus encouraging the continuing destruction of American individual liberty, perhaps more so than any Democratic president since LBJ.

The day will come, perhaps sooner than later, when these people are all the GOP has left.

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