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1. ”bombast, oversimplification, the vilification of political opponents, and engaging paranoid straw men rather than the strongest arguments offered by the other side.”

   That pretty much sums up political discourse in the country. The Democrat party certainly is taking second to no one in this regard, and are greatly benefited by a preponderance of media sympathetic to their view, and invested in their political success. Mischaracterizing one’s opponent and their position appears to be mother’s milk to politics. I’m not going to belabor the point with a string of commonly proffered misrepresentations that you are as familiar with as I. That being said, it seems the lack of a prominent politician who is perceived as the voice of the party is chiefly a concern for the GOP.

   The GOP as a party is unsure if it wants to continue to advance conservative positions, as it appears uncertain of whether or not those positions will return it to power, and that is what the game is all about from the perspective of most politicians. There are few political idealogs residing in the party. Thus, those people that do articulate the conservative position and who have a position of wide public view will necessarily become the voice and face of conservatism.

   — nicholas · Jun 10, 02:52 PM · #

2. If 13% of Americans think Rush is the voice of conservatism, while 52% have no idea who that voice is, then the proper conclusion is not that Rush is the face of conservatism in America, but that conservatism doesn’t have a face.

   — Blar · Jun 10, 03:17 PM · #

3. Correct.

   — nicholas · Jun 10, 03:32 PM · #

4. What I don’t understand is, why someone thinks it is an admirable type of conservatism that focuses on Sarah Palin’s fake pregnancy. (She was wearing a pregnancy suit! It’s really Trig’s baby!) I am baffled that Mr. Friedersdorf believes that this kind of Larouchean nonsense is going to play in Peoria.

   And what about Ann Althouse’s marriage? Those are the issues that Mr. Friedersdorf believes really elevate public discourse?

   Count me out. I’d rather be ruled by sane people like Obama and Spitzer than genuine loons.

   — y81 · Jun 10, 03:45 PM · #

5. To be fair, I’d be willing to bet no one had a clue who was the “face” of the Democrats when they weren’t in the White House. You might get a few Reeds and Pelosi’s and maybe a light glaze of Kerry, but you’d be far from a majority opinion about a face.

   I remember during the Bush years I often bitched and moaned about the weakness of Democrats, who weren’t exactly full of leaders. The pendulum of power swings to and fro…

   — Geoff · Jun 10, 03:52 PM · #

6. Geoff,

   Luckily for the Democrats, however, no one thought their face was Keith Olbermann.

   Y81,

   Huh? When have I ever said that focusing on Palin’s pregnancy is an admirable kind of conservatism, or that it would play in Peoria?

   Have I ever even written anything about Ann Althouse’s marriage?

   — Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 10, 03:57 PM · #

7. “Huh? When have I ever said that focusing on Palin’s pregnancy is an admirable kind of conservatism, or that it would play in Peoria?

   Have I ever even written anything about Ann Althouse’s marriage?”

   I think he’s talking about andrew sullivan.

   — cw · Jun 10, 04:29 PM · #

8. Then he will have to say so. His comment mentions Mr. Friedersdorf’s name twice.

   — nicholas · Jun 10, 04:32 PM · #

9. I am talking about Andrew Sullivan, whom Mr. Friedersdorf appears to greatly admire and consider something of a role model for principled conservatives. (I, in contrast, consider Andrew Sullivan a hateful lunatic.)

   — y81 · Jun 10, 04:40 PM · #

10. Andrew Sullivan is not a “lunatic”, and he is not hateful.

    Andrew is pretty fair in his commentary. He makes mistakes, like everyone else.

    Sullivan was very tough on Palin (deserved, urgent, and fair, I’d say) and his focus was on her dishonesty. Palin’s lying was pathological, and that’s what Andrew was getting at in writing about the fake pregnancy rumors. I never saw anything about this on his blog that could be called hateful.

    And I didn’t see anything wrong with the rest of his work during the campaign. I thought he was excellent.

    If you think Andrew Sullivan is a hateful lunatic, well, that’s a pretty low bar.

    — just some guy · Jun 10, 05:45 PM · #

11. So Conor, USA Today gives you a call and says “Who is the face of conservatism?” They won’t give you 3,000 words. You just have to name a name. And since you like to influence these sorts of things, you name a name. Who did you name?

    — Doug · Jun 10, 06:00 PM · #

12. Also, Sullivan has his critics (obviously) but I’ve never seen him respond as Mark Levin has to Conor and Rod, which was, essentially, “Fuck you, you twerp.”

    — just some guy · Jun 10, 06:03 PM · #

13. So Conor, USA Today gives you a call and says “Who speaks for the GOP?” They won’t give you 3,000 words. You just have to name a name. And since you like to influence these sorts of things, you name a name. Who did you name?

    — Doug · Jun 10, 06:08 PM · #

14. Doug,

    I’m not sure who I’d say — maybe the distorted ghost of Ronald Reagan? Or Fox News? Anyway, it’s not anyone I wish were speaking for them.

    Y81,

    So when I make specific criticisms of talk radio as a medium, your first impulse is to counter by attacking Andrew Sullivan? I don’t get it. How is that relevant?

    There are too many conservatives who react to any criticism by turning around and criticizing something else, rather than grappling with the actual critique.

    Though I disagreed with Andrew’s focus on the Palin baby, I’ve long thought that he does an admirable job of mitigating the effects of the inevitable times when he is wrong by publishing “dissents of the day,” linking to his critics, arguing to defend the positions he holds, and even allowing his assistant to post a critique of his Palin coverage on his own blog.

    But let’s say that I were applying an unfair double standard, whereby I rightly criticized Rush, but failed to criticize Sullivan. What possible difference would my blind spot make to my Limbaugh critique?

    — Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 10, 06:34 PM · #

15. Ah, I knew you’d write that. (I was going to preempt it by saying you couldn’t write it.) There’s something incongruous about “I’ll be damned” and “I’m not sure…” No one can tell you how you should feel, but it’s a two-second phone survey. You just have to name a name.

    But perhaps you can’t because what you have in mind is someone most like yourself, and someone most like yourself would never name a single real person as the voice of the GOP. There’s a bit of AJ Nock in you…kind of a cape-wearing guy that looks down from the hill on above and shakes his head saying “no, the rubes, they’re screwing it up again, they just don’t understand, they’re doomed…” and then he lays his head back and takes a nap. (I’m trying to be funny, but I know a lot of guys that would love to be seen as Nockians.)

    FWIW, my preference is Steyn, but he’s simply not the voice of the GOP. No way, no how. Limbaugh, of course, makes perfect sense. The choice reminds me of the scene in Whitaker Chamber’s Witness when he buys the shotgun at Montgomery Ward. The clerk’s zeal for the choice of gun most able to blow someone away gave a depressed and pessimistic Chambers reason for hope. Chambers got it.

    — Doug · Jun 10, 07:18 PM · #

16. …also, what Blar said. Of course.

    — Doug · Jun 10, 07:31 PM · #

17. Mr. Friedersdorf “disagreed” with his pal Andrew’s “focus on the Palin baby”? As in, some rational people might believe that the governor of Alaska faked her pregnancy! she was wearing a pregnancy suit! but there are other, more important issues that Andrew should have focused on? That’s like my saying that I disagree with Lyndon LaRouche’s focus on the Queen of England’s role in the international drug cartel. It’s not a question of focus, it’s a question of sanity.

    I can’t comment on talk radio, because I’ve never heard it, except a few minutes here and there of Rush Limbaugh at construction sites. But the attack on populist media, while giving a free pass to people who write for The Atlantic, seems more like snobbery than a genuine desire to improve the quality of conservative discourse.

    — y81 · Jun 10, 07:38 PM · #

18. @Blar 10:17

    The question the poll asked was “Who speaks for the GOP?”, not “who speaks for conservatism?”.

    The GOP may well be the primary political vehicle for present day conservatives in the US (I think it clearly is), but that’s a different thing from being at all the same thing as conservatism the movement, ideology, worldview. I think one could fairly say that Obama speaks for the Democratic Party, but I’m not sure you could say he speaks for liberalism/progressivism/whatever (I don’t think any one person clearly speaks for liberalism etc., although I don’t think it’s ludicrous to say that Obama does). Going back to say 2007, I would say Pelosi spoke for the Democratic Party (the institution and its apparatus) but not in any meaningful way for liberalism etc.

    The separation isn’t inherently always there: in the Eighties you could have made a strong argument that Reagan spoke both for conservatism and for the GOP. A similar argument might be made for JFK, but I think it would be a lot weaker (FDR on the other hand probably did have equal influence for his time).

    While I agree with the 52% who think no one person speaks for the GOP these days, I understand the Limbaugh argument, in that it appears that nobody in power dares say that Limbaugh does not speak for the GOP. I cannot explain anybody thinking either McCain or GWB speaks for the GOP, though.

    — bayesian · Jun 10, 08:08 PM · #

19. Y81,

    Saying that Andrew was wrong in that case is hardly giving him “a free pass” — and as you should know as a reader at The Scene, I disagree with Andrew on various matters now and then, but I very much admire the larger approach he takes to public discourse, in which his own most wrongheaded posts are mitigated by the way in which he lays forth his reasoning, defends himself from criticism, airs dissent, and even gives over his blog to those with whom he disagrees. I am repeating myself, but what else can I do when you ignore the portion of my comments that directly respond to you as if I never wrote them?

    Also ignored is my critique of your “look over here, someone else who hasn’t any bearing on our disagreement is wrong” style of public discourse.

    Doug,

    Actually, when it comes to the folks that you call “the rubes,” I think actually have a lot more respect for them and their ability to be swayed by something other than simplistic bombast than most of the movement conservatives who claim to be their champions.

    Robert Stacy McCain’s position is basically that only an intellectually dishonest blowhard can accumulate a big audience among the GOP base. And then he calls me an elitist.

    — Conor Friedersdorf · Jun 10, 09:05 PM · #

20. I should point out that Sullivan’s focus on the Palin baby stuff was almost entirely defined by the fact that there were certain questions raised about the subject that could have been easily answered with little effort, yet the Palin folks flatly refused to do so. All they needed to do was release a birth certificate and Sullivan would have certainly shut up. It appears that what motivated him was a fascination that even in an instance where openess and disclosure could have only helped Palin, stonewalling and obfuscation was still their first and strongest impulse.

    Mike

    — MBunge · Jun 10, 09:13 PM · #

21. Andrew Sullivan’s hysterical style, insane vituperation, fixation on various fantasies, and pervasive gynephobia degrade rather than improving civic discourse. To admire him while generally disapproving of talk radio is seriously wrong-headed. And I don’t see anything wrong with telling people to take the plank out of their own eyes while refusing to respond to their complaints about the motes in the eyes of others.

    — y81 · Jun 10, 09:26 PM · #

22. MBunge: let’s not do the birth certificate thing, okay?

    — y81 · Jun 10, 09:27 PM · #

23. @bayesian: A fair observation. I try to avoid confusing party and ideology, so it’s good that you called it.

    I still think my basic point stands (I think you think so too). If the poll had said that 13% of respondents thought Rush was the face of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Consortium, while 52% had no idea, it would still be a mistake to say Limbaugh now speaks for the whimsical confectionary.

    — Blar · Jun 10, 09:41 PM · #

24. Conor’s take on Sullivan is very accurate. When y81 compares Sullivan to the bombastic shouters on talk radio, it’s just ridiculous.

    Night and day, really.

    — just some guy with an opinion · Jun 10, 10:46 PM · #

25. TAS is getting really depressing.

    — cw · Jun 11, 01:34 AM · #

26. >Like it or not, Americans regard Rush Limbaugh as the face of the Republican Party

    Oh, get stuffed!
    Again you buy into the farce
    If you’re trying to put a single face upon timeless ideas, you’ve bought into the bogus thinking of the Left.
    A pox on this nonsense.

    — smitty · Jun 21, 01:09 AM · #

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