Dana Blankenhorn

The 1970 Game: Who Will Be James L. Buckley Now?

Think of this as Volume 12, Number 49 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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You win elections by playing offense.

This is especially true if you're the governing party. And especially if you represent a new Thesis, a new set of myths, values and assumptions you want to drive politics for decades.

In the years before a new Thesis attains power, it is so desperate for allies that it will support anyone who puts the label next to their name. Once it is in power, loyalty to the leadership and (more important) to the myths, values and assumptions of the leadership, becomes more vital.

The Nixon Thesis was sustained by this in its early years. And one of its chief instruments was James L. Buckley (right). Buckley, a lawyer and William F.'s brother, was the smiling face behind the New York Conservative Party in 1968, and with Nixon's election engineered a coup against the New York Republican leadership, the "Rockefeller Republicans."

That's Rockefeller as in Nelson. Nelson Rockefeller was part of the Eisenhower coalition, a true AntiThesis to the Roosevelt Thesis of Unity, because (like Bill Clinton a generation later) he accepted the premises of that Thesis and sought mainly to moderate it, lean against it, show it could be managed more efficiently.

As Dean would lead to Obama, so Goldwater led to Nixon. The Goldwater movement was the "Netroots" of the 1960s -- highly energized volunteers, grassroots activists with firm principles, seeking not to moderate the Roosevelt Thesis but to overthrow it (as the Netroots would help overthrow the Nixon Thesis.

Nixon approved of this. He wanted loyalty to what he was doing, and the best way to gain that was to eliminate the Rockefeller Republicans. So Buckley, who only had the Conservative line in 1968, was given a second line in 1970, and this became the instrument through which national Republicans funneled millions to defeat Rockefeller's man, Charles Goodall, and neuter Rockefeller himself.

Nixon is back and he's a Democrat

The President's speech on Afghanistan was called adult by some commentators.

Only I'm afraid it wasn't. 

That's because, like President Nixon's Silent Majority speech on Vietnam 40 years earlier, it told only half the truth. 

The President's strategy of a quick build-up, and then a quick draw-down, in Afghanistan only makes sense as part of a larger Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.

Just as Nixon didn't tell America about his secret war in Laos or his plans for Cambodia, so President Obama did not discuss the dirty war the CIA is waging now, and will continue to wage, in Pakistan.

Protection Racket

My PC is very slow.

(This is actually a drum mat, sold in the UK.)

I checked it out with my malware and anti-viral. The malware detector didn't find anything serious. The anti-viral found almost 2,000 copies of a file called sgregister.

I looked it up. Sounded dangerous. I checked message boards for advice. They suggested a "free" product. Click a link, download it, load it, let it run -- waste a few hours. Then my fear is confirmed -- you have 743 serious errors.

But my "Free" software won't fix any more than a half-dozen of those errors. If I want them fixed, I have to register and buy it. I have to pay.