Remember Jack Kemp and David Souter

posted at 1:06 am on May 4, 2009 by Doctor Zero

Jack Kemp passed away over the weekend, only a few days after Supreme Court Justice David Souter announced his retirement. Both men are significant to the conservative movement, in very different ways.

Kemp was a wonderful example of a politician who understood the philosophy of conservatism, and worked to implement its ideas in the real world. He was the instrument through which the focused wisdom of people like Jude Wanniski and Arthur Laffer was converted into real-world policy. He also understood the ideas and passions of the opposition. He read all the right books… and then he read all the wrong ones, to understand why they were wrong. He had something important, something the conservative movement desperately needs: conviction.

David Souter was the opposite of Jack Kemp: his career on the Supreme Court was created from a sad lack of conviction. He was nominated to the Court as a so-called “stealth conservative,” but when the time came to peel off his leftist mask, conservatives found themselves pulling on skin. I’ll leave the dissection of Souter’s judicial record to those with the legal training to analyze it in detail. The lack of confidence behind his nomination is what saddens me, in the aftermath of Jack Kemp’s passing. It’s tragic that the elder Bush, only two years after Ronald Reagan reshaped the world, found it necessary to waste the selection of a Supreme Court justice on someone of dubious judicial philosophy, to avoid a confirmation battle with congressional Democrats. Those battles should be relished, not avoided.

What did Bush – or for that matter, his son – get in return for his delicate refusal to offend the sensibilities of Democrats? He gave them what they wanted on tax policy, and they cheerfully twisted his broken “no new taxes” pledge into a noose around his neck. He gave them a Supreme Court justice whose liberal views came as more of a surprise to Bush than to the Democrats. He worked closely with the House and Senate leadership of the opposition party, and courted personal friendships with them… only to be pilloried for presiding over “the worst economy of the last fifty years.” His Democrat “friends” spent 1992 wiping their own fingerprints off the economy, then left Bush to take the heat – while they scurried off into the night, giggling and hissing at each other to keep quiet, or else the voters would notice them. The “stealth justice” strategy didn’t even work all that well at placating the Democrats. Ted Kennedy ran to every microphone he could find to denounce Souter as a rabid right-winger and the reincarnation of Robert Bork. Molly Yard, the leader of the National Organization for Women, shrieked that Souter would “end freedom for women in America.”

George Bush lost his re-election bid to Bill Clinton, in no small part, because the voters were put off by his lack of confidence in his governing philosophy. He couldn’t inspire them, because he didn’t have the strength of his convictions. We like to make fun of Barack Obama because of how badly he stammers when he doesn’t have a teleprompter to read from, but George Bush the Elder stammered even when he wasn’t talking. He seemed distant and out-of-touch because he had no great narrative to offer the voters, no bedrock philosophy that made voters see him as a safe harbor in stormy times.

In our own stormy times, we can learn from Kemp the value of confidence in our beliefs, and from the saga of Souter we can learn how difficult it is to win over the electorate when you have a thousand little tactics, but no grand strategy. In the wake of the Arlen Specter defection, we’ve heard numerous suggestions that the Republicans should broaden their “appeal” to moderates by sheepishly backing away from conservative principles. Accepting the conventional wisdom that we should apologize to poor Arlen for breaking his heart means accepting the liberals’ claim to moral superiority. We won’t win over voters by beginning our appeal with “I know you have a lot of reasons to distrust us…” We’re not the ones who should be on the defensive, presenting our ideas as if they probably won’t work, and it might just be fatal to try them. The weight of history tells us that is an accurate description of collectivism, which has soured into failure, bitterness, and violence everywhere it has been tried, under every name it has assumed as it tries to repackage itself for each new generation. The exponents of conservatism present a philosophy whose success is hindered only by how much it is diluted. We aren’t the ones who should be having a crisis of confidence.

If we’re to have any hope of reversing the downward spiral America began with the election of Barack Obama, we don’t need nervous, self-conscious “moderate” candidates who campaign for office on a promise to cut five percent off his monstrous budgets, or save a few tax breaks for especially needy constituencies, when the coming tsunami of tax increases rolls in. No faction of the Republican party is going to win elections by condemning the rest of it. The other side knows exactly how important it is to sap the strength of our convictions… which is why the Carvilles and Axelrods and Sackville-Bagginses of the Obama-media alliance spend so much time planting operatives on conservative blogs, and promoting the careers of people like Meghan McCain. They aren’t eager to do battle with the party of Kemp and Reagan again. They would much rather run against a Republican Party of their own design.

Jack Kemp had the confidence of a man who knows his ideas work, and can’t wait to put them into action for the benefit of his country. The people who gave us Supreme Court Justice David Souter spent too much time working on their alibis, and preparing lists of the principles they were willing to jettison, if they needed to drop some weight to make a speedy getaway.

Remember Jack Kemp for what he was, and David Souter for what he wasn’t.

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