Bozell Column: Conservatism, Killing the GOP?

As President Obama enters his second term, what “mandate” does he enjoy? His liberal media enablers are boldly declaring that somehow his four-point victory was a “shellacking,” and the Republican Party is in danger of “ceasing to be a national party.” They’re very blunt about what’s killing the GOP: conservatism.

It’s not helping the GOP that some of its conservative leaders are acting thoroughly intimidated.

On the February 10 “Meet the Press,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the Republicans needed to “connect our conservative principles with helping people and making their life work again.”  This only invited NBC anchor David Gregory to interrupt. “But Leader, it’s core beliefs....There are core beliefs of the Republican Party that the polls show were rejected by a national electorate that you want to try to recapture some of if you're going to get to become a national party.”

This is what they’re transparently trying to do: remove any obstacles to the Obama agenda by remaking the GOP into a 1970s-style Me-Too Republican Party.

Gregory claimed the Republicans are in danger because 2012 exit polls (conducted for the liberal TV networks) showed that “60 percent said income tax rates should either go up on all Americans, or those with incomes above $250,000, 59 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and 65 percent favored giving illegal immigrants a path to a legal status.”

Notice the games they’re playing here. Saying there is 60 percent support for raising taxes for all and just for those over $250,000 blurs two very different positions. Saying there is 59 percent support for abortion in all or most cases again is two different positions – and omits that a majority of Americans now call themselves “pro-life.” And giving illegal immigrants a path to legal status is not citizenship.

Let’s look at it another way. Obama and the Democrats want everyone’s taxes raised. They want 100 percent federally funded abortions until the moment of birth. They want citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants.This is not what the vast majority of Americans believe. So which party is out of sync?

And surprise, surprise, there are the exit poll questions themselves. Take immigration, where they asked this either-or question: Should illegal immigrants “working in the United States” be  “Offered a chance to apply for legal status” or simply “Deported to the country where they came from”?

Can we imagine a different outcome if they asked about “border control”? The latest ABC/Washington Post poll found 83 percent say yes to “stricter border control to try and reduce illegal immigration.” Again, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are out of sync.

NPR loved this game, too. On the February 11 “All Things Considered,” they brought on Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review and author of the completely discredited 2009 tome “The Death of Conservatism,” published 14 months before the conservative victories of 2010. Tanenhaus remains impervious to facts and has now written a slimy article for The New Republic proclaiming “Why the GOP Is and Will Continue to be the Party of White People.”

NPR anchor Robert Siegel never mentioned the silly book title, and failed to notice that The New Republic is now owned by the social-media director of the 2008 Obama-Biden machine. Siegel did mention that there were a few non-white GOP stars with names like Jindal, Rubio, Cruz, and Haley. Tanenhaus said none of that mattered. Conservatism is death.

“What the country has seen throughout Barack Obama's presidency so far is a handful of extremely conservative Republicans in the House who oppose everything he does. There seems to be a kind of disrespect or indifference to the notion of majority rule.” This now goes beyond silly. Is Tanenhaus unaware that the Republicans rule a majority of the House?

He continued: “And until the moment comes when the party itself, not just by presenting attractive [minority] candidates, but until they stop portraying the federal government as this invasive, predatory force, they’re going to continue to alienate large segments of this population, many of whom are people of color who’ve profited from government or who found government to be helpful and useful in their lives.”

Republicans have to stop portraying the government as invasive and predatory – like the divisive language written by those white conservative losers who signed the Declaration of Independence and ratified the Constitution.

As usual, our media, like Obama, sees an inevitably socialist America in our future. To accomplish this, they must first crush the conservative movement. Game on.