Re: The Right’s mistake

Jeff makes an excellent point regarding how the right erred during the nineties by focusing on the evils of Clinton rather than the evils of statism. I am sure many LRC readers had the frustrating experience of trying to get a hardcore anti-Clintonite to see that the threat to liberty was the state, regardless of who is in charge. The reaction was either a blank stare or hostility as the anti-Clintonite passionately reminded you that “Clinton was a bad man!”

It was also the mainstream right’s focus on the evils of Clinton that allowed such intellectual mediocrities as David Brock and Jonah Goldberg to become stars of conservative journalism. Brock’s betrayal of his patrons serves beltway conservatives right for promoting this unprincipled hack in the first place.

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7:29 pm on June 29, 2004