Mitch Daniels and David Brooks at the Hudson Institute

 
Grand Old Partisan had the honor of meeting Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN) on Monday at the Hudson Institute.  We discussed our mutual admiration for another great Indiana governor, Oliver Morton.

Governor Daniels visited the Hudson Institute in support of his new book, Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans.  He began his remarks:

"This book addresses itself to folks who see the world more or less as I do and suggests that it won't be enough to win the next election, it won't be enough to be the default option, which for all I know may be enough to win.  Next year ought to be a year to assume the best about the American people -- to try to summon it forth, to try to level with the American people and trust both that they are able both to understand and to handle, to make reasonable conclusions based on the truths they deserve to be told.

The real goal of the next fourteen months ought to be to unify as many people as possible around the program of big change -- that's major changes in the safety net programs, at least starting out in time -- total commitment to growth... The best way out of our current dilemna is rapid resurrection of growth in the private sector, as hard as that is going to prove to be.

I choose to believe that these things are possible.  It's been well written that democracy is and always was a leap of faith, but great enterprises have faith at their center, always.  I for one see the next stretch ahead of us, starting, but only starting, with a new national decison next year as a huge opportunity, not only to fortify the American promise, arrest the economic slide that we've been on -- but beyond that, to validate the whole idea of government of and by the people."

Daniels then cited the adage: "If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."  He went on to say that we should assume the very best about our citizens, as "creatures of dignity rather than objects of therapy."

The Environmental Protection Agency, he quipped, is more like an Employment Prevention Agency.  The Governor pointed out a contradiction in Democrat economic policy, that Democrats want more government spending but obstruct the economic growth needed to pay for it.  "We're gonna need a heck of a lot more revenue," he said.

David Brooks, the New York Times reporter, then offered his commentary.  He began by claiming part of the credit -- the blame, in my opinion -- for Barack Obama running for president.  Run, Barack, Run he wrote in 2006.  In light of the disaster that is the Obama presidency, the article makes for horrific reading.  He was not really writing about Obama at all.  Brooks was projecting his own self-regard on to Obama.  The praise Brooks heaps on Obama is really Brooks heaping praise on himself.  None are so blind as those who refuse to see they are being conned.

Brooks continued: "I think the book gives you a sense, an inside view, of how governing should really be.  It takes a lot of high-profile issues -- the selling off of the roads in Indiana and other issues -- and really shows why they are sensible.  You get the sense of a conservatism that is not abstract, but a conservatism that is concrete and context-driven and pragmatic.  And so, I thought the book refected the man perfectly well."

Brooks disagreed with Daniels "on the subject of our betters -- that the Democrats, [Daniels] says, have faith that the public needs protection and they're there to do that.  There's a lot of truth in that.  The Obama administration has a great faith in the ability of intelligent experts to organize the world... There's a general sense that if you get the smartest people in a room together, they will be able to create a solution, organize a plan, and plan society.

I very much take Governor Daniels' critique of that to heart.  Conservatism is based on the idea of epistemological modesty, that we just can't know much about the world, and therefore we should devolve solutions to the lowest possible level.  The only thing I would say to add on to that, maybe in tension with it, is that the people are no great shakes either.

It is nonetheless true, and I think that Governor Daniels, like other elected officials, is too generous toward where the people are.  It is true that countries rise and fall based on the moral stature of the country, and that moral stature can rise and fall depending on circumstances.  And sometimes it's up to government and a leadership class to lead it in one direction or another, to serve as the education of the country."

Brooks decried the rising social and income inequalities, oblivious to the fact that it is his idol, Barack Obama, who is responsible -- by crushing the middle class and encouraging subsistence-level dependence on government.

Brooks said he foresees a double-dip recession and, probably, a ten-year "lost decade" like in Japan.  He also refered, annoyingly, to political leaders as "the leadership class."  Even worse, he said they are "our betters."

Such snobbery is not just un-American, it's anti-American.  POLITICIANS ARE NOT A LEADERSHIP CLASS AND THEY''RE NOT OUR BETTERS -- THEYRE OUR EMPLOYEES.

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the country.  Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision.  He is also the author of the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar.  His Grand Old Partisan website celebrates more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics.