Obama has dinner with conservative opinion writers

… and I wasn’t invited?

Seriously, the writers in question were Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, the WaPo’s Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks from the NYT, and the NYT’s George Will, at whose house the dinner was hosted.

I’m not sure what to make of this. The non-cynical side of me says this is a good-faith effort on the part of PEBO to show conservatives he’s willing to give their ideas serious consideration. The cynical side of me says this is no more than PEBO throwing a meaningless symbolic bone in hopes that conservatives who don’t know much about Obama’s policy positions are fooled into thinking he’s a bipartisan president. There could also be the hope from Obama that the writers will, at least in the short term, pull a few punches when they write about him. In that regard, I’m not sure why Brooks was invited, considering that some of his columns last year indicated he was already enamored with the then-presidential hopeful.

What do you think?

Via Memeorandum.

7 Responses to "Obama has dinner with conservative opinion writers"

Mwalimu Daudi says:

January 14, 2009 at 11:15 am

I believe that it was Charles Krauthammer who said that by this summer the Messiah will own the current recession, regardless of His efforts to spin this as something that will take many years to fix.

What is clear that He is frantic to get the GOP’s fingerprints all over the pork bill that He is pushing through Congress in the hopes that the public will forget who actually controls Congress. This dinner (I suspect) is part of a strategy to “democratize” or spread blame, and to provide cover for RINOs to do what RINOs do best. With super-majorities in both houses of Congress Democrats are going to need all of the help that they can get to get Republicans to take the fall.

The Messiah’s task is complicated by the fact that RINOs are a species that is (thankfully!) moving towards political extinction. Since Coleman, Chafee, DeWine, Smith (Oregon), and Sununu are gone, Martinez and Voinovich retiring, and with Specter and possibly McCain facing defeat in 2010, the Messiah is running out of Republican human shields to hide behind. (If there is one good thing that will come out of the inevitable Republican debacles of 2010 and 2012 and beyond, it is the fact that most RINOs will finally be gone. Now that’s change I can believe in!)

When He Whose Middle Name Must Not Be Mentioned invites Rush – or (better yet) goes on Rush’s radio program – then I will be impressed. Not before.
Leslie says:

January 14, 2009 at 11:39 am

ST,

I wish you HAD been invited.

MD,

You’ve stated–and very articulately as you always do–the argument for the small tent. That argument, with which I respectfully disagree, begs the question: Who will the voters who previously voted for these RINOs turn to next time? Your assumption appears to be that the “true” conservatives will somehow overwhelm the RINO defectors and elect one of their own. I am far less certain of this, because of time and the demographic river flowing.

Was the electoral vote in VA and ST’s own NC a one-off, or will those states flow toward the blue end of the spectrum?

Ah, there’s the rub.
Anthony (Los Angeles) says:

January 14, 2009 at 12:04 pm

Unless it was a completely cynical move on PEBO’s part (alaways possible), it can only be good. Brooks annoyed the heck out of me for his Obama-worship and his elitist slagging of Palin (I don’t even consider him a Center-Right writer, anymore.), but Will, Kristol, and Krauthammer have my respect.

But it’s too early to make any judgments. For now, this falls under the “interesting” category.
Lorica says:

January 14, 2009 at 1:21 pm

Leslie, I would agree with you, except there is historical evidence for what MD is saying. Just look at the 1980 election results. Then to prove that it wasn’t just a fluke, the 1984 elections cemented what we now know, that being, this country would rather be governed by conservative ideals, rather than by moderate or leftist. If you had a common sense conservative, not some RINO who talks a good game, the idea of who the moderates would vote for would be solved.

My question is, how many moderates who voted for McCain in the primaries, turned on him, and voted for Obama in the election, all because of the “historic” nature of this election??? – Lorica
Mwalimu Daudi says:

January 14, 2009 at 2:01 pm

Your assumption appears to be that the “true” conservatives will somehow overwhelm the RINO defectors and elect one of their own.

Actually, I made no such assumption. I pointed out that RINOs are (or will be) falling fast – and at the hands of Democrats. When the GOP puts up Democrats in Republican clothing, don’t be surprised if the public comes to prefer authentic Democrats to fake ones. Reagan ran as a right-of-center Republican, and won states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and even California.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “time and the demographic river”. But no amount of time or demographic change will turn bad ideas and failed policies into good ones. Why should I support candidates like (say) Schwarzenegger who talk one way during an election and govern another? Should not Democrats be taking the heat for failed Democrat policies? Many “big tent” Republicans made similar arguments to yours after Goldwater lost in 1964. Guess who had the last laugh?

If “big tent” Republicanism means signing onto bad policies and lousy candidates that only end up making things worse, then include this “small tent” conservative out.
Leslie says:

January 15, 2009 at 10:51 am

Lorica and MD,

Thanks for your thoughtful replies. Lorica: You are absolutely correct about the election of 1980 and 1984. I think that those were precisely the opposite of what we have now. Reagan won because he attracted a large number of people with views from center to right, who had come to realize that the Democratic tent was now too small, and that Jimmy Carter simply wasn’t up to the job. I agree with you that moderates turned on McCain, just as they turned on Carter in 1980.

MD: You may well wish, as a “small-tent” Republican, to be included out, but what good does that do in the long run if your views do not prevail? If you feel better about yourself for being ideologically pure, let’s say. You’ll get no quarrel from me. There have been a couple of elections where I voted Libertarian and felt just fine.

To all: Narrowly ideological parties tend to fail. The McGovernite Democrats of the 1970s are the classic example here, and the pre-Blair (and sadly probably post-Blair) Labour Party is another one.
Great White Rat says:

January 15, 2009 at 2:12 pm

I’m a little late to the party, but here goes anyway:

For years, the media and pundit classes have been lecturing the GOP to move away from conservative principles. You’re too ideological, they were told – move to the center and you’ll win in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan. So last year the Republicans took the advice and nominated as its presidential candidate a man who’s spent most of the last decade attacking the conservative base and arguing for exactly that kind of middle-ground approach. Do I have to remind you how that worked out?

The conservative base, like myself, lost all enthusiasm until Sarah Palin’s ascendancy. Even that wasn’t enough to get some people, like MD, to pull the lever for McCain.

The left, of course, was rapturous, not with McCain, but with the ideologically pure Obama. Funny how no one in the MSM or talking head class ever tells the leftists they need to think about moving to the center, isn’t it?

And the squishy middle, given a choice between an authentic leftist and an amporphous set of undefined principles, shrugged and chose the former. At least they think they know what they’re getting.

Lastly, the media – McCain’s true base – turned on him in a heartbeat.

So tell me, exactly what was gained by adopting this “big tent” approach?

Bottom line is, you need to stand for something. The Democrats do. They’re a much more “narrowly ideological” party (to use Leslie’s phrase) than the GOP, and they’re not failing right now. The Republicans, sometime early this decade, stopped believing in something other than staying in power. That’s when they began to lose the confidence of voters.

As for Leslie’s remarks on wanting a “small tent” – I disagree with that characterization of standing for conservative principles. Principles of free enterprise, individual liberty, strong national defense, and respect for our national identity and heritage provide one hell of a big tent. The problem is that some people who logically belong in it don’t realize it. Take the millions of black Americans who work hard, want their kids to have good educations, don’t like much of the leftist agenda (see the black vote on Prop 8 in CA, for example), and are appalled by high taxes and government waste. They’re patriotic Americans who are no different from me, or you, or Lorica, or MD, or ST. By any logical measure, they should be conservatives. Except that they’re pounded with the indoctrination that somehow unless they vote for the liberal, they’re “Uncle Toms”, or some similar slur. So they vote, consistently, for politicians who do not have their interest in mind. There’s room for them in the “tent”, but they choose not to enter.

The problem isn’t the size of the tent, it’s the size of the welcome sign in front of it. It’s communication. We need a spokesman who can clearly articulate what it means to be a conservative, what conservative principles have done for America, and where the leftists have gone wrong. We need someone who can puncture the MSM fog and get to the heart of the debate, preferably with a down to earth sense of humor about left-wing foolishness. Ronald Reagan did that. Imagine, for example, what Reagan would do on the campaign trail with a leftist sacrament like global warming.

When we stand for something – and then find someone who can bypass the MSM and bring our message to America, we win. When we don’t, we lose. It’s that simple.

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