Your Blog Goliard has been catching up on some reading after spending a few days out of town; and when he got to Stephen Moore’s OpinionJournal piece from Sunday, he couldn’t resist banging on a bit on a favorite theme.

Moore questions “whether liberal Republicans will come to understand that in order to hold onto power it’s time for them to start helping conservative Republicans win general election races.” If they do, the realization has been a long time coming…at least 15 years, by my count. Perhaps the names Oliver North and Mike Farris ring a bell?

As this weblog never tires of pointing out, the biggest problem with RINOs and other Republican weak sisters—the President and his father very much included—is not that they disagree with conservatives, but that they also buy into the cosmopolitan Left world-view in which the Right is scary and backward and icky, and maybe more than a little evil as well. So it feels like virtue to them when they actively torpedo their own party’s nominees in the general election.

These characters are, of course, repaid for this disloyalty by having their incumbents backed to the hilt by the party machinery, even (especially?) in the primaries—e.g. Arlen Specter, Lincoln Chafee. No wonder they call the GOP the “stupid party”.

Amidst the immigration controversy and rights talk, I’m still waiting for the rights of people who were born and raised in America to get a mention.

If any random person who decides to swim across the Rio Grande has a right to live in America, how much more so do natural-born Americans have a right to live there—specifically, to live in an America they recognize, that is fundamentally the same as the country they grew up in and love?

There is only one America, one England, one France, one Netherlands. If immigration renders their cultural and civic life unrecognizable, where are the Americans and Englishmen and Frenchmen and Dutch supposed to go? And consider that if these people were colorful natives living in some less fortunate place, rather than evil Whitey, the Left would be first in line to chase the interlopers out, in the name of preserving these precious, diverse, indigenous cultures.

Perhaps this just goes to show what a troglodyte I am, but I consider it a fundamental human right to be able to preserve and defend and inhabit the country and culture one was born into and grew up in; and to be able to pass on the same, fundamentally intact, to one’s children. Uncontrolled immigration threatens that right—especially when assimilation is weak and multi-culti PC regnant, and when an overwhelming proportion of immigrants come from a limited set of populations which bear political or linguistic or religious or cultural grudges against the host country.

We don’t have to commit cultural suicide to prove we’re not racists, do we?

“Is Fred Thompson lazy?” seems to be one of the questions of the day in blog-land. I would expect Jonah Goldberg to chime in on this soon, as he has been Mr. “Don’t just do something. Sit there!” before; perhaps he has a similar take on this as I do.

To wit: I am hoping Fred is in fact guilty as charged—if, as I suspect, the D.C. crowd is saying “lazy” when they really mean “knows the difference between what needs doing and what doesn’t”.

There is too much of a culture of blind frantic striving, of overwork for overwork’s sake, in Washington these days—and that includes the other presidential campaigns, which, for instance, never miss an opportunity to issue a blizzard of statements and press releases on matters that will concern no one in a half-hour’s time. Such habits are not only bad for the health, but inimical to the sort of contemplation which undergirds wise action. (And of course those habits are also fatal to humility and a sense of proportion.)

We don’t need another President who brags about working so very hard for the American people. (What exactly is he doing? It doesn’t matter: he’s working so hard that he must, by definition, be doing us a world of good!) We need a President who sweats every last detail of the essential stuff, and pretty much ignores the rest. Both halves of that equation would be a refreshing change.

I do hope that Fred is our man. If he continues to tune out the consultants, running his Presidential campaign his way, with a fresh-eyed look at what is actually important and productive and what is not, what has changed with blogs and YouTube and such and what hasn’t, that will be a very good sign indeed.

Peggy Noonan’s latest has the feeling of a blockbuster, the sort of column that people will be referring back to months or years from now, as the beginning—or end—of something.

It was a relief to this Blog Goliard to see someone so widely read, and so well connected to the White House (at least in the past), say some of the things that we ordinary footsoldiers have been mumbling to each other for some time. Taken as a whole, the points she made served as confirmation of something that I have suspected for some time: that the biggest problem with the President Bushes, father and son, is that they are Republicans who have internalized the political “morality” of the Left.

I am not speaking of specific policies, but rather of the fundamental attitude that takes it for granted that liberalism is virtuous, even when its policies fail, and conservatism is immoral, even when its policies succeed. Most Republicans who breathe the air of D.C. long enough seem to succumb to this to some degree, and wind up gratefully accepting compliments for having “grown” in office (in mild cases), or obtaining the dreaded Strange New Respect (in more serious cases).

If I am right, then it should be no wonder that the Bushes squander their political inheritance so. It’s hard to preserve and defend the legacy when in their hearts, they know they’re wrong (or at least wicked). I’ve tried to popularize this concept as the “reverse Goldwater”, but so far none of my e-mail acquaintances at National Review Online have taken the bait.

So many things fall into place in light of this theory. For instance, any amateur psychologist would tell you that the Bushes’ resentment of their own base is inevitable. We make them feel icky, yet they depend on us to win elections, so they can’t disown us in exchange for liberal plaudits as they’d like to. What an awful bind we put them in. The very least we can do in return—they think—is disappear gracefully after Election Day, or offer absolute blind loyalty if we don’t disappear. If we fail, we risk a fury reserved only for perceived enemies to the right.

Or how about the recurring impulse to make deals with Ted Kennedy, and thereby share his aura of liberal virtue, instead of with…oh, I don’t know…how about any other Democratic Senator who is less reflexively Leftist, more trustworthy and honorable, and less unremittingly partisan and hostile to the Administration? (Yes, there’s a lot in this post that is elaboration and amplification of the one two posts down. But I’m going to keep taking bites at this apple until I feel I’ve nailed it.)

And of course comprehending “compassionate conservatism” is a snap (message: “I’m not heartless and evil like other conservatives…probably because I’m not really that conservative”), as is the exceptional indulgence of disloyalty so long as it comes from “moderate” rebels (Lincoln Chafee is closer to the virtuous pole than W. himself; of course the NRSC will go to the mat for him).

My only worry about this theory is that it may be too simple and explain too much. But that’s not always a bad thing, is it?