Washington Insiders
Inside Liberty Watch Today - Oct. 12, 2005

In the wide world of conservative punditry, we don't count for much. We publish a weekly in"flyover"country and if you think that all the lip service "flyover: country" and "red states" get on the Fox News Channel count for anything, than you don't really understand Washington. You see, Washington isn't about a clash of ideas. Washington is about making money. 

You can do that as an Al Sharpton or a Jesse Jackson by shaking down the liberal faithful. And you can do that as Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Pat Buchanan, David Frum and George Will do, by sucking up to the conservative faithful. That is exactly what is happening in the case of Harriet Miers, President Bush's pick to replace Sandra Day O'Conner on the Supreme Court. You see, these guys don't really have any respect for George W. Bush. They're all just like Dana Carvy's"Church Lady"dancing their"superiority dance".

And, just so I'm not leaving anybody out, let's put these people in their rightful place. They are the Al Sharptons, the Jesse Jacksons, the James Carvilles of the far right and with their opposition to Miers' nomination they are actually earning the sobriquet"lunatic fringe far right nutjobs" Take Pat Buchanan. It happens that Pat may remember me as I was at Pat Choate's side in August of 2000 while we hijacked the Reform Party's nomination and gave it to Buchanan at the convention in Long Beach. Pat told us that he would take the Reform Party and help turn it into a viable third party, building on the progress that Ross Perot and Pat Choate had made in 1992 and 1996. Instead he took the $12.5-million tax dollars which the Party had earned from its previous showings under Perot and pissed it away, hiring his political buddies for six weeks to do nothing. His showing was so poor that the Party was entitled to nothing in 2004.

Today, there is no Reform Party and Buchanan is back to being part of the GOP"intelligentsia". And he thinks he's smarter than the man who won the office of President in 2000 and 2004. Let's see. Buchanan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. George Bush has been President for five years. Buchanan can write-and even deliver-a pretty mean speech. George Bush has to go to bed every night knowing that decisions he makes can cause young men and women to die. There's a code word that guys like Buchanan use. "Gravitas." It means"seriousness of behavior"in the dictionary.
To the clown princes of conservatism it means somebody whose checkbook they would like to duplicate when they grow up. They think Bush is a lightweight, somebody who they"made"President and that they"own"him. Well, it was the American public who elected George Bush-twice-and the actual contribution of the conservative pundits was not nearly as large as the fact that both Al Gore and John Kerry were perceived by that public to be-in a word-stiffs.

The truth is that guys like Krauthammer, Will and Kristol are mad because they think they are the shadow Senate.
And, by the way, these clowns not only think they're smarter than the President. They also think they're a lot smarter than you and I. Well, here's a newsflash from flyover country. Nobody elected them, any more than they elected Sharpton or Jackson. And they really can't deliver anything for a President who has run his final campaign. We'll see if Bush is truly his own man now. If he caves to these arrogant beltway dogs, then he's not. If he is standing in the Rose Garden when Miers is being sworn in, than many Washington"insiders"have totally missed what most of us in"flyover"country already know. George W. Bush is nothing if not tenacious.

George Wallace used to call liberals who act like this,"pointy-headed pseudo intellectuals who couldn't even park a bicycle straight." That's as eloquent description of Buchanan, Krauthammer, Kristol, Frum and Will as we can think of, Except for adding Spiro Agnew's,"nattering nabobs of negativism."
Don't like W's picks?

Then vote for John Kerry.

And, by the way, conservative is defined as that which governs least governs best. Abortion is not about conservative or liberal. It's about conscience. And based on what we've seen from the far left and the far right recently, that's something which is in very short supply in Washington. Which brings me to my final piece of advice which is , remember, coming from a conservative weekly newspaper publisher who has done more than a bit of business in Ms. Miers' home state.

Don't mess with Texas.

Fred Weinberg, guest columnist and publisher of the Penny Press.