LIMBAUGH FATUOUS ABOUT GOPROUD.

        Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that the social conservatives’ hub-bub over C-PAC’s invitation of GOProud to participate in its big parley is foolish.  Why?  Because, he asked do the Democrats try to exclude liberals who aren’t in line 100% with ideology?  
        No, he thundered.  But of course the answer is yes. They don’t demand line-by-line comformity but down-the-line comformity on ideology.   You can support modest changes in Obama spending but by no means can you support pro-life or anti-gay “rights.”
       The difference is this. Conservatism is indeed the three-legged stool that Ronald Reagan famously described. One leg is free market economics.  One leg is a patriotic foreign-defense policy geared to enlightened self-interest.  And the third leg is social policy—support of Judeo-Christian traditional morality.
        If Limbaugh thinks Democrats support those party liberals who are pro-life, who oppose same-sex marriage and civil unions, he should check his ideology meter.  A key case happened in Illinois in 1998 and has happened repeatedly in the nation ever since.
        That year Illinois Secretary of State was running for governor and was opposed by a Democratic downstate legislator Glenn Poshard.  Poshard was an economic liberal; a pro-unionist; a campaign fund reformer as was popular in those days.  But he was pro-iife and anti-special rights for gays.  He was nominated in a fluke but the party here betrayed him.  A leading pro-abort strategist told me confidentially the fix was in with Ryan privately agreeing to switch to pro-abort and pro-gay rights after election.    Ryan was elected and indeed switched.
         Since then it is not by coincidence that the state and national Democratic party will not budge on the indelible issues of abortion and gay rights.  The Republican party makes exceptions in certain state races i.e. Mark Kirk who became a revolving turret on gay rights…voting one way in the House on DADT and the opposite when he got to the Senate.   That should not be a surprise.  One look at the little guy’s eyes tells you they’re computing vote totals to his advantage.    
        But CPAC has always been …until now…a litmus test on conservative ideology.  Now on gay rights there has been a fatal defect.  GO-Proud has shown its loyalty by assailing traditionalists once it go in.
        That’s understandable since Judeo Christian traditionalism cannot mesh with secular humanism.  There are a great many who wish this not to be the case:  Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh.  Glenn Beck is a kind of self-educated species who admittedly has come late…very late…to ideas.   This late arrival by the way has paid dividends to conservatism. So enraptured is he as a new learner to the stuff I and others learned in traditional schools years ago that he presents old ideas infectiously because they are new to him.   And new to 90% of his audience, obviously.
       But coming late to ideas betrays an occasional gap.
      I fully expect to see him run to his blackboard and announce he has just discovered Plato’s analogy of the cave. The multi-married Limbaugh is secularly infected…abortion being  one exception… witness the $1 million he paid for the militantly homosexual entertainer at his most recent wedding.     Coulter with her waspish tongue has gone both ways on gays.  Breitbart is on the board of GoProud.
         The danger for a party that depends on conservative ballast is the too-wide-open tent.  The spectacle of libertarianism  gone amok to libertine-ism is a great threat to the ballast of conservative ideology.  You saw the spectacle of the Ron Paul kids booing Cheney and Rumsfeld for the Iraq War.  They’re allies of the Left on many things
       Libertine-ism and the Left agree on many things.  That’s because largely the Paulites are free spirits on drugs—no other reason.  They also propagate unrealism in defense…let’s close down our intelligence units…let’s unilaterally disarm…let’s pop pills…let’s puff weeds…let’s go off on sexcapades with abortion as birth control (oh I know Dr. Paul is personally pro-life—yeah, sure; his kid followers aren’t I can tell you that).
       The trouble with Limbaugh is that while he’s good as a conservative spokesman he is a gelding on politics since all he’s done is bloviate.  As I do some radio I can tell you it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.
     Believe me.