I respectfully dissent from National Review’s Wednesday-evening editorial, which derided Newt Gingrich as not merely flawed but unfit for consideration as the GOP presidential nominee. The Editors further gave the back of the hand to the bids of two other prominent conservatives, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — a judgment that is simply inexplicable in light of the frivolousness of its reasoning and of the Editors’ embrace of Jon Huntsman, a moderate former Obama-administration official, as a serious contender.

The editorial surprised me, as it did many readers. I am now advised that the timing was driven by the editorial’s inclusion in the last edition of the magazine to be published this year, which went to press on Wednesday. The Editors believe, unwisely in my view, that before the first caucuses and primaries begin in early January, it is important to make known their insights — not merely views about the relative merits of the candidates but conclusions that some candidates are no longer worthy of having their merits considered. Like many other voters, I haven’t settled on a candidate. What I want at this very early stage is information about the candidates so I can consider them, not a presumptuous and premature pronouncement that good conservatives do not even rate consideration.

Regarding former Speaker Gingrich, I have no objection to the cataloguing of any candidate’s failings, and Newt has certainly made his share of mistakes. But there ought to be balance — balance between a candidate’s failings and his strengths, balance between the treatment of that candidate and of his rivals. The editorial fails on both scores.
Gingrich’s virtues are shortchanged — his great accomplishment in balancing the federal budget is not even mentioned, an odd omission in an election that is primarily about astronomical spending. His downsides are exaggerated in two unbecoming ways.

Let me preface the first by conceding that I am as concerned as anyone by the former Speaker’s walks on the wild side — though I think they are outweighed by his unique gifts. Like other conservatives, I was disappointed this week by his dig at Governor Romney’s success at Bain Capital — we can’t both fight to restore economic liberty and talk like Occupy Wall Street agitators when someone practices it. I accept Gingrich’s explanation that the remarks were a bad attempt at cutting humor — in reaction to withering taunts from the Romney campaign — and are not a reflection of his views. But he has to know that such outbursts exemplify his famed impulsiveness, giving his detractors a chance to say, “I told you so.”

Nevertheless, if the Editors were enterprising enough, they could just as easily write a similar editorial, with the same tone of alarm, about, say, Governor Romney or Governor Huntsman. Their heresies, too, are notorious — and their explanations no more satisfying. I am not suggesting that such editorials be written — particularly with respect to Romney who, like Gingrich, would make a superb president. I am just saying that it could be done. For the Editors to single out Gingrich for this kind of raking — particularly when his accomplishments in government dwarf anything his rivals have managed to achieve — fails the test of judgment conservatives expect from National Review. The transcendent mission of our founder calls for explicating principled conservative arguments about the great issues of the day, not “winnowing” intra-GOP primaries. I appreciate, as Jonah Goldberg recounts, that the magazine has made endorsements in some prominent contests throughout its history. In this instance, however, we are talking about clearing a seven-person field — eliminating strong conservatives, preserving spots for two moderates (and one solid conservative who is a very long long-shot) — before a single vote has been cast.

Over the weekend, the Tea Party detractors were at it again – this time blaming the movement for the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others. Within hours of the attack, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman had issued his own (admittedly) unfounded verdict: “We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was . . . she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist.” So Tea Party activists are prepared to kill those they cannot defeat at the polls?

Left-wing bloggers and commentators blamed the attack on Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin because she had “targeted” Giffords for defeat during the 2010 elections. The New York Daily News published a column headlined “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ blood is on Sarah Palin’s hands after putting cross hair over district.” And an hour after Giffords was shot, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas actually tweeted: “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.” He conveniently failed to mention that his Daily Kos had put a “bull’s eye” (their words) on Giffords in 2008 – including her on a list of centrist Democrats who should be “targeted” in Democratic primaries. Mission accomplished, Markos?

Giffords’s Arizona colleague, Rep. Raul Grijalva, said the Tea Party was responsible because “[When] you stoke these flames, and you go to public meetings and you scream at the elected officials, you threaten them – you make us expendable you make us part of the cannon fodder. . . . Something’s going to happen.” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) echoed this sentiment, declaring, “America must not tolerate . . . inflammatory rhetoric that incites political violence.” And Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik blamed the attack on the “vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.” Who, exactly, is Sheriff Dupnik accusing of hatred and bigotry? And why is it acceptable to condemn vitriol in politics while contributing to it in the same breath? This is what passes for restoring civility to our nation’s discourse?

What is really outrageous is how quickly so many jumped at the opportunity to politicize this tragic shooting – blaming the Tea Party and conservative political rhetoric without a shred of evidence to back those claims. Police are still investigating the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, but it is clear he is a deeply disturbed young man. He had recently been suspended by Tuscon’s Pima Community College until he obtained a doctor’s certification that “in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others.” Students had warned that he might show up in class with a gun. Loughner was rejected by the U.S. Army when he tried to enlist. In a bizarre YouTube rant, he declared: “The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.” Government brainwashing through grammar control is not exactly a driving issue for the Tea Party. Conservatives are no more responsible for Loughner’s attempted assassination of Giffords than liberals were for John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.

On Sunday, the New York Times published a front-page story, “Bloodshed Puts New Focus on Vitriol in Politics.” Nowhere did it mention the vitriol hurled at Tea Party activists, who are routinely derided to as “tea baggers” and racists, and now stand accused of incitement to murder. If you want an example of the lack of civility plaguing our political discourse, look no further than this weekend’s shameful efforts to use this tragedy to demonize the Tea Party.

…we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies … will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.

That’s right. Obama’s Regulation Czar is so concerned about citizens thinking the wrong way that he proposed sending government agents to “infiltrate” these groups and manipulate them. This reads like an Onion article: Powerful government official proposes to combat paranoid conspiracy groups that believe the government is out to get them…by proving that they really are out to get them. Did nothing of what Sunstein was writing strike him as…I don’t know…crazy? “Cognitive infiltration” of extremist groups by government agents? “Stylized facts”? Was “truthiness” too pedantic?

Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald explains why you should be disturbed by this:

This was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein’s close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class.

… What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein’s worldview is his condescending, self-loving belief that “false conspiracy theories” are largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the Muslim world.

It’s certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive “false conspiracy theories” have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, “crazy conspiracy theorist” has long been the favorite epithet of those same parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and corruption.

It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein’s desire to use covert propaganda to “undermine” anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned — rationally — to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein’s proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don’t trust the Government and “conspiracy theories” are so pervasive precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.

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Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster. Now he’s put a horse’s head in Roger Ailes’s bed.

Not very subtle. And not very smart. Ailes doesn’t scare easily.

The White House has declared war on Fox News. White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Fox is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox “not really a news station.” And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to “be led [by] and following Fox.”

Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration — from exposing “green jobs” czar Van Jones as a loony 9/11 “truther” to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health-care legislation — the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead.

The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry — finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.

At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House “pool” news organizations — except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.

This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

There’s nothing illegal about such search-and-destroy tactics. Nor unconstitutional. But our politics are defined not just by limits of legality or constitutionality. We have norms, Madisonian norms.

Madison argued that the safety of a great republic, its defense against tyranny, requires the contest between factions or interests. His insight was to understand “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties.” They would help guarantee liberty by checking and balancing and restraining each other — and an otherwise imperious government.

Factions should compete, but they should also recognize the legitimacy of other factions and, indeed, their necessity for a vigorous self-regulating democracy. Seeking to deliberately undermine, delegitimize and destroy is not Madisonian. It is Nixonian.

But didn’t Teddy Roosevelt try to destroy the trusts? Of course, but what he took down was monopoly power that was extinguishing smaller independent competing interests. Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical — and that doesn’t even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Fox and its viewers (numbering more than those of CNN and MSNBC combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN — which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a “Saturday Night Live” skit mildly critical of President Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark that CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?

Defend Fox from whom? Fox’s flagship 6 o’clock evening news out of Washington (hosted by Bret Baier, formerly by Brit Hume) is, to my mind, the best hour of news on television. (Definitive evidence: My mother watches it even on the odd night when I’m not on.) Defend Fox from the likes of Anita Dunn? She’s been attacked for extolling Mao’s political philosophy in a speech at a high school graduation. But the critics miss the surpassing stupidity of her larger point: She was invoking Mao as support and authority for her impassioned plea for individuality and trusting one’s own choices. Mao as champion of individuality? Mao, the greatest imposer of mass uniformity in modern history, creator of a slave society of a near-billion worker bees wearing Mao suits and waving the Little Red Book?

The White House communications director cannot be trusted to address high schoolers without uttering inanities. She and her cohorts are now to instruct the country on truth and objectivity?

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