A LITTLE REMINDER FROM A PRO – AT 8:23 A.M. ET:  One of the reasons conservatism has succeeded in the last 30 years is that it's had a core of writers and commentators who constantly struggle to keep the proper focus, and not allow the fringes to take over.

And one of the most remarkable developments in the past week has been the willingness of some of these stalwarts to step forward and caution about mistakes they see.  Frank Gaffney Jr. has been a rock of support for a strong national defense as president of the Center for Security Policy.  Like others on the right, he's been concerned at the lack of vigor he's seen in putting forward the Reaganesque argument for defense and national power.  He's correct.  Some conservatives are dropping the ball on foreign policy, and reverting back to the bad old days, when it was an afterthought.  From the Washington Times:

Ronald Reagan the actor once famously screamed on-screen "Where's the rest of me?" after waking in a hospital to discover that a sadistic surgeon had amputated both of his legs. My guess is that Ronald Reagan the national leader would express similar horror at what is happening to his beloved conservative movement as some in its ranks seek to sever from its agenda the priority "the Gipper" consistently gave to national security.

One need look no further than the various functions held in the Washington area last week to see why Mr. Reagan would be so alarmed. On Wednesday, I joined a group of prominent conservatives assembled for the purpose of unveiling a document dubbed "the Mount Vernon Statement." It was intended to emulate an earlier articulation of the principles that unite the right issued 50 years ago at the Sharon, Conn., home of William F. Buckley Jr.

But something was missing...

the Mount Vernon document made no mention at all of today's totalitarian ideology - what authoritative Islam calls Shariah - or the threat it poses to America, let alone declare that victory should be our purpose in dealing with this menace.

And we have to ask why.  Is there a faction seeking to return conservatives to the hopeless isolationism of the past, which made the right almost irrelevant for years?

Still, the Mount Vernon Statement is a paragon of robust national security-mind- edness in contrast to what took place in the succeeding three days at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). With a few notable exceptions - including powerful addresses by former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton and former Sen. Rick Santorum - the program was bereft of the focus one would think 10,000 people who cherish the memory of Ronald Reagan would have demanded, especially in the midst of a global war with two active combat fronts.

Incredibly, there was but one panel held in the plenary hall that had as its principal subject the question of national defense.

We noticed that here.  In the era of President Weakness, you'd think the "protect America" theme would be front and center.  It was not, and many are outraged.

As a result, it came as little surprise to this attendee that libertarian Rep. Ron Paul won 31 percent of the vote in the CPAC straw poll. In the absence of the sort of serious attention to national security that was emblematic of the conservatism of Bill Buckley and Ronald Reagan, why shouldn't those present feel free blithely to endorse a man who is committed to small, cheap government even if his positions on foreign and defense policy are so extreme and so critical of America as to make Barack Obama's look responsible, if not hard line?

Wonderfully stated.  True, as we've reported, only 25% of the participants voted in the poll, but the mainstream media, doing its mischief, has focused on that nutty vote.

And Paul's foreign-policy comments sadly remind us of another time, another place, when some on the right (and extreme left) had an uncomfortable "understanding" of our enemies.

Even if a robust security-policy platform were not, on the merits, the right stance for the right, it has proven repeatedly to be the winningest stance politically, especially in times when our countrymen properly feel insecure. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts was wildly acclaimed by the CPAC masses, yet he would be the first to acknowledge that some 64 percent of his voters supported him because of his rejection of Mr. Obama's fecklessness on terrorism.

Yup.  That's what the polls showed.  And that was in one of the most liberal states of the Union.

In time of war, the American people deserve at least one party/movement/team that is unabashedly Reaganesque in its commitment to the national security of the United States. If conservatives and Republicans fail to articulate and demonstrate such a commitment, it is a safe bet that - even in an election season seemingly so promising - they will wake up on Nov. 3 screaming, "Where's the rest of me?"

COMMENT:  I'm glad someone said it, and Gaffney said it well.  National defense is what I call a "foundation" issue.  It's basic.  People may not always articulate their feelings about it all that well, but it's always there, and always counts in voters' calculations. 

Some on the right are forgetting first principles.  We're here to remind them.

February 23, 2010