Michael Medved

I think Mike Gallagher will say most anything for its' shock value. I know the title of this blog is Michael Medved, but the reason I brought up Gallagher is because in the past I have had more respect for Michael Medved. I know that he loves to debate, but thought that he generally took more principled positions than he has taken lately in the case of his comments regarding Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. For example, Medved insists that Huckabee is a genuine conservative in all areas. I will acknowledge Huckabee's genuine and admirable pro-life and pro-marriage positions. I do not however believe that advocacy of a nationwide ban on smoking is a libertarian or conservative position. And, failure to admit raising taxes by saying that he "raised hope" does not answer the raising taxes question satisfactorily for a conservative who, in the words of one pundit, "hopes that my taxes will not be raised". Liberals always say that taxes are being raised for a good cause. All of their causes are good. I was reminded of the liberal mindset the other day when a commentator decried the amount of tax revenue it cost the government to allow the homeowner interest deduction. Any income that does not go to or through the government is "lost" revenue.
I'm sorry that Medved has been willing to allow the "identity politics" of Huckabee to slide by. His "innocent" question to the NYT reporter of "Don't they believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?" was just too much. For a person with the training of Mike Huckabee, that would be analogous to him asking, "Weren't they the ones who begged for Jesus to be crucified?" We may be interested in how a person's religion strengthens their character, but we should not be concerned about how they worship their deity. I would like to see Mr. Medved more concerned about the invocation of religious code to question a candidates character than whether comparing political positions is "negative" or dishonest. All of the candidates have spoken or acted on the issues and all of those positions are subject to examination and debate, but to call every disagreement a lie is to question ones character without addressing the issues.
I was really sorry to see Mr. Medved be willing to overlook or even compliment Gov. Huckabee's "withdrawal" of his negative ad. I believe that he even praised his "staying positive". To me that single act was a brilliant political move. It was the most blatant, cynical act I have seen a politician perform. The reporters laughed out loud at its obvious political nature and yet most fell right in with the planned outcome. Huckabee's negative ad became the most talked about and seen ad of the campaign at no cost to the campaign while the candidate continued to claim that it was withdrawn out of his own distaste for negative campaigning. All the while he was decrying Gov. Romney's "dishonesty'. It was brilliant, even Machiavellian. It was very effective in the short run for Iowa, but I do believe that it may have exposed a hypocritical side of Gov. Huckabee's campaign that may have backfired for him in Michigan, where the evangelicals where more willing to listen to the issues than to necessarily vote for "one of their own".
Mr. Medved has continued to be very negative on Gov. Romney, witness his latest analysis of the governor's victory speech after the Michigan results were known. He noted that the points that Gov. Romney struck were the same as the Democrats. He made it sound as if Republicans do not want good health care or better jobs or better schooling and that lower taxes for middle-income Americans is a bad thing. Give me a break. We all want the same things, the question is how are we going to get them and what will be the governments role. Gov. Romney has outstanding, free-market and lower government solutions for all of those things, but Michael Medved felt that he had to criticize him for not making clear all of the differences in a well-deserved victory speech. Most people criticize the Governor for his technocratic, power-point presentations. Why not allow him to have a little jubilation, a little emotion?
Michael, you are such a great debater that you can probably win both sides of many issues. I hope many of the positions you have taken are for the sake of the argument and do not represent your "willing suspension of disbelief".