rush to judgment

In the latest Imprimis (containing an address he gave in December), and apparently again at last week's Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) meeting, Rush Limbaugh pronounced a sentence of excommunication on "big government conservatives" and other such false brethren. Doubtless he had in mind such "neoconservatives" as David Frum, a frequent target of his anger these days.

There is a history of conservatives extending the left foot of fellowship to other conservatives. Frum himself infuriated many "paleoconservatives" back in 2003 when he suggested that they were being unpatriotic and didn't deserve to be called conservatives. He was, in a sense, returning a favor paid to the neocons by Stephen Tonsor (a paleocon) way back in 1986, when he read neoconservatism out of the movement in bitter and hysterical terms.

My sympathies in this ongoing dispute lie very decidedly with Frum and the neocons, and indeed I would resist any suggestion that there is some sort of moral equivalence between Frum's 2003 piece and any of the paleoconservative rantings against neocons, or Limbaugh's latest stunt.

However, I don't think that the habit of excommunicating other people who choose to call themselves conservatives is a healthy one, whoever might engage in it. Conservatism is a diverse movement, encompassing people on opposite sides of many issues. So it has always been, and so it will always be. I happen to think that's a strength of the conservative movement--which in many ways isn't a movement at all, but a collection of disparate movements that share a few things in common. There are many conservatives whom I can't stand, but that doesn't make them non-conservatives.

Besides, what was Limbaugh trying to accomplish? Did he seriously think he would get Frum et al. to stop calling themselves conservatives? Or that he would get everyone else to stop calling them conservatives? I think he's too smart to have been pursuing either of those hopeless objectives. I'm more inclined to think he was doing what he usually does, and does so well--venting, grabbing publicity, and preaching his choir into a happy frenzy.

But the next time he pronounces a sentence of excommunication, he should be sure to dress and carry himself more pontifically. I might find him a bit more convincing that way, though no less silly.