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Copyright by John T. Reed

Much has been made lately of the unhappiness that conservative talk show hosts like Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingram, and Coulter have expressed with John McCain as the Republican presidential nominee.

Inability to stop McCain
Some have cited their inability to stop McCain from getting the nomination as evidence that they have lost influence.

1. This year’s nominating process caught everyone by surprise. McCain was “left for dead” to use a phrase that many others have used, last Fall. The right was reasonably happy with likely nomination candidates like Giuliani and Romney. The elimination of those two, and the ascension of McCain, was unexpected and extremely swift thanks to Super Tuesday, which not only favors those with name recognition and recent momentum, but more or less is the whole ball game. Prior primary seasons lasted for months and the winner emerged slowly. Had the conservative talk show hosts had more notice, I expect they would have had more influence.

You can see that in the Hucakbee vs. McCain primaries after Romney got out. Huckabee had a number of strong contests against McCain, apparently because of the hammering McCain has taken on talk radio. When they have time, the conservative talk show hosts have great effect on conservative voters.

2. Conservative talk show hosts probably have lost influence, but McCain is a symptom, not a cause of that. They are a bit nutty on all things military and religious—including abortion and stem cell research.

Unpopular war
The war is unpopular with the American people—not just the liberals—the American people. And the American people are right about the war. Bush and his advisors grossly underestimated how difficult it would be to convert Iraq to a peaceful, democratic, U.S. ally. Furthermore, it appears that Bush and his subordinates have been inept at conducting the war.

Conservative talk show hosts are blind to those facts and to the financial cost of the war. They see it in terms of American defeat, the terrorists win, and all that. In fact, if there is another Islamic fascist threat to America, the American people will rise up and counterattack. The enemy knows that. That is probably why they have been relatively quiet since 9/11. They recognize that we may leave the Middle East after the election, but that any misbehavior by them will renew the commitment of the U.S. public to attack and defeat them.

America has had some successes that discomfit the enemy including the hanging of Saddam Hussein and some of his henchmen, the taming of Libya’s Muammar Ghadaffy, the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (planner of 9/11), the killing of Hussein’s sons and Iraq al Qaeda head Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We have also pacified parts of Iraq to a large extent. The enemy knows we can continue to do things like that and crimp their style to say the least. They know if we leave and they have a victory parade and resume blowing up our people and buildings that we will be back and they will like our next visit less than the last one.

The issue is not defeat or victory. It is where to set the dial of our activities aimed at defending America from terrorists. Neither the “all” position of the conservatives nor the “nothing” position of the leftists is appropriate or the position of the American people. Americans simply feel that, currently, too many of us are dying, too much money is being spent there, and that the Iraqis are not doing enough to defend themselves. That is arguably correct. No one knows exactly what a departure from Iraq by the U.S. forces would mean—not McCain, not Hillary, and not Obama.

Conservatives have lost influence because their position on the war is too ideological, too devoid of common sense and nuance.

Abortion
Abortion is one of the thorniest ethical questions ever to face human beings. Neither the right yelling “Never” nor the left yelling “Always” through their bullhorns has an intelligent position on the issue. The American people in general recognize the complexity and lack of clarity of the moral issues involved.

I do not have the solution to the abortion issue anymore than the left or right does, but I have a suggestion reflecting one aspect of abortions that I think is dead wrong. I do not like the “Out of sight, out of mind” way abortions are handled. Let the women who want abortions perform the abortion themselves under medical supervision. First they are shown the fetus inside them by video camera, then they maneuver the vacuum that removes and thereby ends the life of the fetus, and they push the button that aborts. Afterward, they dispose of the fetus. I read that the nurses who have been forced to do the disposing of the fetuses are outraged at having to do that. King Solomon would make the mothers do it.

Note that I have not said anything about whether the woman should abort or not. I am not sure. The mother certainly has more at stake than I do as a third-party observer. All I am saying is let’s stop having it be some sort of abstraction.

I note that leftists are very big on wanting executions of prisoners televised and that they hate videos of fetuses being aborted. Rightists are big on videos of fetuses being aborted but opposed to televising executions of prisoners. Both are trying to use the “Out of sight out, of mind” flaw in the human brain to preserve their political position on killing a particular category of human life. Both are trying to keep one of the two matters abstract. Neither is abstract. There is a real human being executed in prisons and a real human fetus being killed in abortions. Those who advocate either should not object to everyone involved seeing exactly what is going on.

Conservative talk show hosts, like leftists, have long held their cast-in-concrete positions on abortion. But when supplemented recently by their position on stem-cell research—that it’s as bad as they say abortion is—causes the American people to dismiss them as captives of the religious right. Stem cell research is probably nowhere near as promising as its advocates say. But there is no reason not to do it other than to suck up to religious nuts.

Conservative talk show hosts are thoughtful on issues like economic freedom, global warming, campaign finance, and to an extent on issues like defense. But they are nutty on the war in Iraq and religious-related matters. They have lost influence because the war and stem-cell research have ascended in importance and revealed a larger split between ideolocial conservatives and the pragmatic, common-sense Americans. I am OK with conservative principles, but not the application of conservative ideology to extremely complex issues like the war in Iraq or religious influence over government policy and law. The American people as a group seem to feel the same.

When they think about the issues and all their nuances, the conservative talk show hosts are quite good. But there are some issues where they believe thought and nuance are verboten—use of military force and policy decisions that are believed to be covered by the Bible. When they stop thinking, they spout nonsense and they lose influence.

Defensiveness
I think some of the conservative talk show guys—notably Limbaugh and Hannity—I never hear the others—have spent too much time defending their positions on McCain. Seems to me their response is obvious and simple. They are not politicians. They are entertainers who entertain via conservative commentary. Nothing wrong with that. Politicians are responsible for winning elections, not talk show hosts. To an extent, the conservatives got themselves into this pickle by taking credit when the Republicans won in the past. But they never claimed to be politicians and they are not. Indeed, they all repeatedly refused to run for office.

They should continue to analyze current events in accordance with their principles. They absolutely should not pretend to like McCain or to turn themselves into shills for the lesser of three evils in the presidential campaign. The Republican Party set up this lousy primary/caucus system. For now, they need to live with the consequences of the monster they created. For the future, they need to fix the primary/caucus system so that the person who wins the nomination is the choice of the registered Republican voters. All the delegate choices should be made by primary and none by caucuses which are an invitation to game the system. No one should be allowed to vote in a party primary other than those who are registered in that party.

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions.

John T. Reed