Originally published at NationalJournal.com
By K. Daniel Glover
At 10:49 a.m. on Saturday, May 13, Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project fired the rhetorical shot heard ’round the conservative blogosphere. Under the header “Conservative Battle Fatigue,” he diagnosed a trio of his favorite online writers as having the political equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Their open criticisms of President Bush and the GOP-led Congress, Kesler said, are symptoms of the ailment. They have been “worn down by defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth column in the media.”
Kesler concluded with this hopeful yet pointed thought: “I wish them a speedy recovery, before more adversaries are allowed to breach the walls because of their petulance.”
All three bloggers — Stephen Bainbridge, Ed Morrissey and Mark Tapscott — rejected the diagnosis. And thus began a debate about what a true conservative is supposed to do when the “compassionate conservative” in the White House and the Republican revolutionaries in Congress lose their way on the path of rightward-ness.
Tapscott took the lead, noting that one of his goals “is to encourage a discussion in the blogosphere about whether the GOP deserves the continued support” of its base. An editorial he wrote for The Washington Examiner helped accomplish that goal by inciting Kesler to speak, and Tapscott then seized on the opportunity to continue the debate at his blog.
Over six days at Tapscott’s Copy Desk, he posted seven entries on conservative battle fatigue. Tapscott outlined a series of conservative-minded votes on immigration, federal spending and other issues that Congress could take to “nationalize” this year’s election and regain favor with its electoral base.
If they fail, he said, “conservatives then have an obligation to find or create a new party.” And they can do that by seizing the tools of the Internet. “What the Internet has done to the mainstream media … can and most likely will be done to all of the ‘Bigs’ of our society, including Big Government and the political parties that live by it,” Tapscott wrote.
