The Coming Pundit Revolt

But there are two problems some conservative pundits have with the rise of Beck, and the ongoing transformation of Fox News into a Beckian network. One is that he’s expressing a sort of old-fashioned ’50s Reds-under-the-Beds conservatism, which is by its nature isolationist. What worried Wehner, who is a “neoconservative” very much in favour of foreign intervention, is that this kind of isolationism will take root and become popular; Beck has already attracted many of the people who were Ron Paul followers last year, and many of these people hold views on foreign policy that are closer to the “left” than the right. Now, when a Republican is in office again, Fox News will switch back. (Again, this is familiar if you followed the Clinton era, when the Kosovo intervention was decried as scary imperialism by many conservative pundits and politicians who supported the Iraq invasion a few years later.) But right now they’re validating a viewpoint that many conservative pundits find dangerous and don’t want to see mainstreamed: the conservatism that is anti-intervention across the board, at home and abroad. Fox News will stop promulgating these views when they’re not convenient, but right now, for the sake of ratings, they’re helping to bring the Paulites into the mainstream of conservatism, and so-called neoconservatives hate the Paulites even more than they hate liberals.

Interesting.