NRO infighting about Palin

In their infinite wisdom, K-LO and friends have decided the time has come to once again stand athwart history yelling stop. Not at Barack Obama, mind you, no, at Gov. Palin:

To conclude from these possibilities to the accusation that President Obama’s favored legislation will lead to “death panels” deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved — let alone that Obama desires this outcome — is to leap across a logical canyon. It may well be that in a society as litigious as ours, government will err on the side of spending more rather than treating less. But that does not mean that there is nothing to worry about. Our response to Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics is to paraphrase Peter Viereck: We should be against hysteria — including hysteria about hysteria.

Great. The most anti-conservative White House since, well... ever, is about to nationalize the entire American healthcare system, and Romney's cheerleaders-in-chief think this is a great time to start another round of GOP infighting. It is, to put it mildly, seriously lacking in judgement. In fact, I'm pretty sure Jake Tapper's conservative father-in-law would have called it downright idiotic. That's also NRO contributing editor Andy McCarthy's opinion. He respectfully voices his dissent against the editorial in a separate contribution (also published today) in which he effectively accuses his colleagues of Palin Derangement Syndrome:

I don't see any wisdom in taking a shot at Governor Palin at this moment when, finding themselves unable to defend the plan against her indictment, Democrats have backed down and withdrawn their "end-of-life counseling" boards. Palin did a tremendous service here. Opinion elites didn't like what the editors imply is the "hysteria" of her "death panels" charge. Many of those same elites didn't like Ronald Reagan's jarring "evil empire" rhetoric. But "death panels" caught on with the public just like "evil empire" did because, for all their "heat rather than light" tut-tutting, critics could never quite discredit it. ("BusHitler," by contrast, did not catch on with the public because it was so easily refuted.)

The editors implicitly concede that Palin is on to something. Indeed, from an Obamaesque perch, they find themselves admonishing both "Sarah Palin’s fans and her critics." With due respect, there's a right side and a wrong side on this one. Above the fray is not gonna cut it.

Sure, the editors acknowledge, there's lots of reason to be worried that we're speeding down the road toward euthanasia and that Obamacare could make things worse. But it's somehow "to leap across a logical canyon" to suggest that death panels are imminent or that they are what Obama wants.

On the latter, who cares what Obama personally wants? I don't see why we should play into the personality cult that the Left is hoping will overcome the deep substantive flaws in the president's policies. I happen to think that something like death panels is exactly what is desired by Obama — who is an abortion extremist, who supported a form of infanticide when he was an Illinois state legislator, and who has wondered aloud about the value of end-of-life care provided for his own grandmother. But Obama's personal feelings are beside the point. What matters is what's in the bill.

In suggesting it's hyperbole to say death panels are — or were — in the bill, the editors engage in a little hysteria of their own, describing the function of such panels as "deciding whose life has sufficient value to be saved." But few people worried about death panels think the process will be anything so crude. It will be what Mark Steyn described in his column this weekend: the bureaucrats won't pull the plug on you; they will gradually restrict your access to various forms of treatment while you wither away prematurely. Maybe if Palin had called them "Dying on the Vine Panels" our opinion elites would have been more understanding — though I doubt it, Palin derangement syndrome having proved itself more infectious than Bush derangement syndrome.

The editors further suggest that Palin could be wrong — not that she is wrong, but she could be. After all, they reason, "it may well be that in a society as litigious as ours, government will err on the side of spending more rather than treating less."

Really? First of all, there is no more to spend. Second, the editors themselves admit at the very beginning of the editorial that "rationing is inevitable in medicine. Not everything that might be in a patient’s best interest can be done in a world of finite resources." The whole point of health-care "reform" is to enable something other than the combination of individual liberty and market forces — namely, government bureaucrats — to do the inevitable rationing. Third and finally, as I discuss in my column this morning, the Obamacare proposal has a remedy for "a society as litigious as ours": it systematically cuts off access to the courts so that the decisions of the executive branch are final. The bill is designed to insure against litigation pressure to spend more rather than treat less.

I think Palin was right to argue her point aggressively. Largely because she did, a horrible provision is now out of this still horrible Obamacare proposal. To the contrary, if the argument had been made the way the editors counsel this morning, "end-of-life counseling" would still be in the bill. We might have impressed the Beltway with the high tone of our discourse and the suppleness of our reasoning, but we'd have lost the public. I respectfully dissent.

NRO's editors take aim at Palin, and instead end up shooting themselves in the foot. Proof if proof were needed that when it comes to the issues that really matter you're better off reading Facebook than the magazine of the late (and sorely missed) William F. Buckley.

UPDATE by RAM: We have some of the sharpest readers in the blogosphere. One of our readers sent this email to Andy McCarthy and gave us permission to repost it here:

You are dead on with the "Evil Empire" reference.

For what it's worth, I also think Whittaker Chambers (you know, the guy who turned that other sports broadcaster into a conservative President) is also on your side:

"If the Rep[ublican] Party cannot get some grip of the actual world we live in and from it generalize and actively promote a program that means something to masses of people—why, somebody else will. There will be nothing to argue. The voters will simply vote Republicans into singularity. The Rep[ublican] Party will become like one of those dark little shops which apparently never sell anything. If, for any reason, you go in, you find, at the back, an old man, fingering for his own pleasure, some oddment of cloth (weave and design of 1850). Nobody wants to buy them, which is fine because the old man is not really interested in selling. He just likes to hold and to feel."

And on National Review specifically, Chambers was concerned that the conservative movement would become nothing more than an exclusive coterie in a “a stifling little room where conservatives huddle together and hear each other moan.” The very fact that NR is even talking about rationing is only because of Sarah Palin and her ability to bypass the MSM and communicate blunt truths to the people.

I used to have an NR subscription. I loved getting it in the mail and reading it cover to cover. Those were the days. I've let my subscription lapse. Aside from one or two thoughtful writers (and a good post every now and then from some of the regulars), the magazine has really gone down hill. The American Thinker is a better outlet for cutting edge conservatism (and hell, I've found a wealth of ideas throughout the conservative blogosphere. The posts by the guy at Hot Air who blogs under the pseudonym "Doctor Zero" is masterful when compared to some of the dull drivel I've read in recent months at NRO). When I discovered that I could read Thomas Sowell at Real Clear Politics and Mark Steyn at SteynOnline and Victor Davis Hanson at VictorHanson.com, there just seemed no reason to even go to NRO. Their only useful function now is to act as a sort of sexed up version of the Heritage Foundation. If you're looking for a dry policy paper, NRO is your place. They're not about winning the battle for conservatism, they're about getting respect in the faculty lounge.

Ann Coulter once said that every few years NR feels the need to throw a good conservative under the bus in order to show the Georgetown/Manhattan cocktail crowd how "reasonable" they are (not like those rabid rightwingers like Coulter and Limbaugh). Sarah Palin is a natural choice for going under their tire treads. It's as if they're throwing the entire grassroots under their bus too.

To that I say, "Digitus impudicus!" You are no longer standing athwart history shouting, "Stop!" You are standing on the sidelines tsk-tsking Sarah Palin as she makes it stop.

UPDATE II by RAM: Dan Riehl takes NRO to task here. Vintage Riehl.

UPDATE III by RAM: Conservative Comeback writes:

In one week Sarah Palin had a portion of the bill tossed out and along with the help of townhall protesters has put ObamaCare on life support. Can anyone point me to a National Review article that has made headlines to damage this bill? Hell, can anyone show me anything they wrote that made headlines during the campaign? Actually, that's not fair. They did make headlines when Christopher Buckley endorsed Barack Obama. Oh, and when Kathleen Parker called on Palin to resign. Keep up the great work.

Read the rest.

UPDATE by Mel: Kathryn Jean Lopez via NPR:

Hillary Clinton snapped. It was unfortunate, because she is our secretary of state and she blew a fuse while abroad, but it's only human to unload now and again. And it was apparently all a misunderstanding, in any case. Predictably, it has unleashed a partisan defense team the likes of which a Sarah Palin will never know. [emphasis added]

Well, she's clearly not going to get it from NR, but we've known that for quite a while, haven't we? She does, however, have a defense team here. One that is more interested in stopping ObamaCare and saving the country than being invited to parties in Georgetown.