"A libel-slinging cheap-shot protectionist prevaricator": on running anti-intellectualism out of the GOP

As I mentioned to a number of people this week in a widely distributed e-mail message, I’ve really done it now. I’ve been mentioned in the American Spectator.

Not, of course, for any of my frequent anti-Obamanista tirades that you’ll find here, but for a relatively dispassionate economic analysis in my day job—my small advisory firm that works largely in the arms industry. If you don’t read the American Spectator, rest assured that there’s nothing dispassionate about it. The article by Quin Hillyer starts with the sentence

        U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt is a libel-slinging cheap-shot protectionist prevaricator.

I called myself had already called him a protectionist, which from a present-day Chicago Boy like me is pretty damning, but I laid off anything nastier. Hillyer cites Tiahrt’s article in Human Events (another publication accustomed to the hyperbolic) by the title

        “EADS = Corruption”

Charming character he. For those not deeply involved with the federal military budget, the whole matter centers on the fight between Northrop Grumman and EADS (the parent organization of Airbus) on the one hand, and Boeing on the other, over the KC-X competition, the US Air Force’s effort to replace its rather aged KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft. Tiahrt makes some charges about EADS’s business practices that are borderline libelous, and in any case, unworthy of a federal congressman; Hillyer, for his part, pays me this compliment:

        Do read this analyst, James Hasik: After what is manifestly a thoughtful, full, independent analysis, he concludes that “There may be better strategies for tanker replacement than split procurement, but there are clearly worse ones as well.” (Read his footnotes, too, for guidance to other articles on this issue that reach the same conclusion.)

This gets me to another conclusion, one to which my periodic mentions-in-dispatches have led me. Quite contrary to what some have repeatedly tried to tell me over ten years of managerial advisory work, people like those footnotes. They like the detail. They like the full, dispassionate analysis. How do I know this? The frequency with which I get quoted in the press varies almost directly with the academic intensity, even the length, of what I write.

This column, of course, is not about scaring up clients (though any reading this are encouraged to write), but about scaring up support for reform and energy within the GOP. What’s so annoying to me is about Tiahrt is that he’s a Republican—a libel-slinging, cheap-shot, protectionist Republican from Kansas, where so much is wrong, of course—but he’s still part of our party. Repeating lines like these—

        In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former CIA Director James Woolsey stated that bribery is an established part of European corporate and government culture

indicates how little homework he is bothering to do. European corporate culture? Everywhere? To be sure, there are a few countries in Europe lacking in transparency, but just for example, little is rotten in Denmark these days. Please.

In short, we need to run this cheap-shot, sound-biting horse hockey out of the party, because too many voters are too smart for that. Apart from the CAPS LOCK crowd, serious discussion counts for more than one thinks. Voters may not have a lot of time, but the time they have had better not be wasted. Having been burned on the cheap “hope and change” lines of the Obamanistas, a large tranche of the electrorate is now looking for someone who can seriously propose how to radically restructure government without tossing out the pursuit of useful outcomes. Formulating the policy requires serious thinking, and selling the policy on requires serious talking.

So, to make that happen, here’s my advice to GOP candidates, particularly in central Texas, about how not to perpetuate this dangerously boneheaded appearance that some wings of the party have developed over the past few years:

Try not to use the word conservative three times in every paragraph. It’s all well-and-good to identify one’s self ideologically, for a lack of ideology leaves one in the position of Captain Louis Renault, blowing with the wind, even when the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy. That sort of pragmatic weaseldom is what leads legislators to vote year-after-year for fabulous unbalanced budgets, because their lack of imagination and conviction precludes serious action. As a matter of marketing, it’s not helpful to advertise one’s candidacy solely with a slogan, particularly to the point of Capitalizing it mid-sentence. Tell the voters—even in the GOP primary—something useful on which they can make a decision.

Don’t yammer on about tax cuts without identifying offsetting spending cuts. This was tolerable under Reagan, when the real threat of the Soviets made a little crazy borrowing tolerable—the resulting military build-up convinced Gorby that he couldn’t compete, and his half-way attempt at reform brought down the whole Evil Empire. Under the Bushes (H.W. and just-W) it was pointless and craven. Under Obama, it has gotten so out of control that the whole edifice is about to come crashing down. If we’re to be to pick up the pieces, and in the process assume control of government, we need to have practical plans for making way. Tell voters what you really mean to do, and punish your opponents when they try to dodge the issue. If we can’t get this one right, we’d all be better off living on the Moon.

Don’t pander to the nut-jobs. Keep a good distance from the anti-NAFTA crowd and its incoherent babbling about a North American Union, Freemasons, and those black helicopters (I know—that’s SO 1993). And, if you are off the reservation, just let us know. For example, try not to obfuscate your intent with lines like world class science standards. If you’re enough of a crank to want to teach creationism in the classroom, just say so. We’d at least respect your honesty, and then we could distance ourselves from you so that our friends don’t laugh at us. Seriously.

Put some serious discussion of policy on your website. Even if the fairly useless television news staffs don’t have time to read and report, broadcast is oh-so 20th century. If you’re a serious candidate, have something serious to say for serious people who have time to think. If you want them to go out and influence others, give them the ammunition they need for the fight.