It's time to kill compassionate conservatism.

Actually, we just need to snuff out the adjective, because the modifier 'compassionate' is exactly what's killing Conservatism.

When then-Gov. George Bush popularized this phrase during his first White House run, it may have seemed to his supporters like a nice way of saying, "We're not just a party of rich, cold-hearted, saber-rattlers.

In fact, the addition of the adjective did nothing but play into the hands of those who have caricatured Conservatives as elite, aloof and ambitious. By adding 'compassionate', Mr. Bush in effect said, traditional conservatism is not naturally compassionate, but I'm going to change it to make it so.

This highly-effective misinformation campaign led us to at least two historic misappropriations of American earnings -- the No Child Left Behind Act and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. And when Hurricane Katrina hit, the expectation of a 'compassionate' federal government inspired the victims to actually rise up and curse the entity that was pouring billions of dollars into their city, and to spew vitriol at the standard-bearer of compassionate conservatism himself.

While the president has been right about fighting Islamic terrorists overseas, a strong national defense combined with a big-spending domestic agenda deserve a more accurate slogan: Making the World Safe for Liberalism.

Perhaps ironically, unadorned Conservatism is the most compassionate, merciful, just and loving political ideology the world has yet seen. It's time for Conservatives to rise up on their hind legs, and proclaim the truth and beauty of it.

Conservatives cut government spending. They don't just reduce the projected rate of spending growth, or trim the fat from one corner as they lard up another. They actually cut spending, overall, relentlessly, continually. We do this because we believe that the people who earn the money should decide how it's spent. We trust them, on the whole, to spend it well, in ways that advance the vision of a free and moral society. Government spending, however high-minded, hinders the 'invisible hand' of capitalism -- the unseen force that drives men to altruism because it tends to their own benefit.

Conservatives reduce the size and influence of government. The weight of responsibility in most matters should be born by individuals, and by their freely-created associations. The more government does for us, the more it strips us of responsibility. Eventually, that leads to a society of passive recipients, rather than one of energetic innovators, industrious workers, and passionate transformers. Real men crave responsibility, because they're endowed by their Creator, not only with the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but with an inward desire to share the burden of accomplishment.

Conservatives cut taxes and so-called entitlement programs. When government tries to help a man, it inevitably strips him of his dignity. At the same time, it cheats another man of his opportunity for personal acts of mercy and generosity. In the hands of a bureaucrat, disbursing the redistributed wealth of others, charity is a cold, heartless program. In the hands of an individual, using his own money and time, charity becomes love again. Government's hostile takeover of the compassion industry has done immeasurable harm to the poor, and to those who would help them. When charity begins at home -- in our neighborhoods and towns -- rich and poor alike get to know each other. The helper and the helped meet each other as men, face-to-face, and work together shoulder-to-shoulder for the betterment of all. No longer are the relatively-wealthy seen as impersonal money bags. No longer are the relatively-needy seen as irresponsible sponges. We help one another to see our interdependence -- one gains in mercy, the other in responsibility. If government would divest itself of all entitlement programs, compassion would multiply at a fraction of the cost. The necessity for charity would decline with the resurgence of the dignity of man.

Conservatives take law-enforcement seriously. The spirit of the law is upheld by the letter of the law. Enforcing existing laws reduces crime and the need for additional laws. So, it enhances freedom. Piling up paragraphs in the criminal code is a waste of time without impartial arrests, speedy trials, honest judges, fair convictions, and full punishment. Criminals should fear the police. The rest of us should love them. Conservatives have a clear-eyed view of human nature, knowing that the threat of judgment for some men is the only discouragement to avarice. For a small number, that threat fails, so the punishment must swiftly and surely follow. For our protection, and for the preservation of freedom, these guilty few must leave our streets, and some must depart the land of the living.

Conservatives restore the balance of power. When the unelected usurp the rights of the people, and jeopardize their protections, Conservatives intervene for the cause of the victims. When free-speech is banned to protect incumbent lawmakers, we stand up. When collectivists in government confiscate private property for "the greater good", we rise to defend our brother's land. When law-abiding citizens are disarmed, exposed before their enemies, we gird ourselves for battle. When a woman's womb becomes a slaughterhouse, we defend the child who faces death for the sin of existing, and who suffers brutality to maintain a hazy halo of privacy. In so doing, we also defend the woman who has taken refuge in a lie promoted by people who think that earth would be a great place to live if it weren't for all of the people. Conservatives love women, and their babies; about half of whom are also female. Conservatives also love people of all kinds, and we despise the intrauterine genocide now waged against our darker-skinned brothers and sisters by liberals who demand civil rights, but only for those who escape the abortionist who lives on the payroll of liberal politicians.

Conservatives don't outsource personal protection. Much as we admire and value the police, we take personal responsibility for preemptive protection. We exercise our natural right to self-defense, and our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, as both a bulwark for our freedoms and the best crime-prevention tool yet invented. When decent men bear arms, they pose an unreasonable risk to indecent cowards, forcing the would-be criminals back toward civil society where happiness can be pursued with less danger to life and limb.

Conservatives build a strong national defense. As our own president has noted, we don't crave an inch of foreign soil. If we need foreign oil, we willingly buy it at market prices. Once upon a time, this citadel of liberty stood beyond the forbidding sea. But technology has overcome distance as a defense, and the American island no longer lies remote from our enemies. When the first jet took flight, it turned the vast ocean into a mere moat. All men hate war. All men love freedom. Yet often war is the price of freedom. American blood irrigates the fields of liberty around the world. Conservatives don't shrink from this duty, because we know that a free Iraq or Afghanistan adds more winners to the revolution which began in 1776, whose ripples of peace and prosperity will most certainly come back around to our shores. Again the Conservative's unvarnished view of human nature guides his doctrine of war and peace. As the bumper sticker says: Peace Through Superior Firepower. Weakness invites attack, strength deters it.

These are some of the core beliefs that make conservatism as glorious an ideal as fallen man can conceive.

If the ideal seems yet afar off, it's not a failure of Conservatism. It's a failure of courage, and a lack of vision. Conservative politicians, and we who support and elect them have wavered, and sometimes collapsed in the face of the vigorous onslaught of liberalism.

It's time to kill compassionate conservatism, and to call Conservatives to rise up and live out the true meaning of our creed. Under this banner we march boldly forward, with freedom as our object and compassion as the legacy of our rediscovered liberty.

Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly daily news satire site, contributing author of the forthcoming book "The New Media Frontier" (Sept. 2008, by Crossway), and a dynamic public speaker available through Premiere Speakers Bureau.

by Scott Ott

Sen. John McCain went to a beef producers convention yesterday, and gave a red meat speech. A cattle farmer in the crowd, remarked to his brother, "I'd like to hear him give that same talk at a convention of vegetarians."

Actually, it was a cluster of conservative political activists who listened as Sen. McCain spoke passionately of strong borders, devotion to the rule of law, strict-constructionist judges, defense of human life in the womb, free-market health care, lower taxes, vigorous cost cutting, the death of sneaky earmarks, and his strong suit, an aggressive national defense policy.

He made some headway with skeptical conservatives more familiar with Sen. McCain's proclivity to partner with liberal lawmakers to write legislation that limits liberty for all but illegal aliens.

But giving a meat-lovers speech to the beef council doesn't test convictions. He needs, with equal exuberance, to carve and devour a rib-eye in the presence of the vegetarians and vegans whom he loves so well. Even more, he must tell them of the rich flavor and satisfying texture of steak, wave it before them on the tines of the fork, and celebrate it with such sincerity they long to take a bite.

"I am proud to be a conservative, and I make that claim because I share with you that most basic of conservative principles: that liberty is a right conferred by our Creator, not by governments, and that the proper object of justice and the rule of law in our country is not to aggregate power to the state but to protect the liberty and property of its citizens. And like you, I understand, as Edmund Burke observed, that "whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither . . . is safe."
    -- Sen. John McCain at CPAC, February 7, 2008

At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Sen. McCain gave his best speech to date. But it's not his stump speech. It should be. To make it better, the candidate should take Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, with him on the trail, because Sen. Coburn's introduction yesterday stands with Marc Antony's eulogy to Julius Caesar in the annals of extreme makeovers.

Sen. Coburn made a convincing case that with President McCain, you may not always get what you want, but you'll always know what you're getting. Of course, that's exactly what causes such trepidation as the Republican nominating convention approaches. We think we know what we're getting with Sen. McCain, and much of it we don't like.

But Sen. Coburn painted his colleague as a thrifty, incorruptible stallion eager to kick down the doors of the brie-filled rooms where budget deals are made on the backs of hardworking taxpayers. He said Sen. McCain has no plan to grant amnesty to illegals, and if he did, that Sen. Coburn would kill it. More than anything, he portrayed the former POW as a gutsy fighter, willing to sacrifice all for a just cause.

Senators Coburn and McCain said nearly all the right things at CPAC. Now, let's hear the Republican presidential front runner take that show on the road consistently, in a way that convinces conservatives that it's more than just a show.

Sen. McCain has the God-given ability to lead.

Time will tell if he has the convictions that inspire conservatives to follow.

Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly daily news satire site, contributing author of the forthcoming book "The New Media Frontier" (Sept. 2008, by Crossway), and a dynamic public speaker available through Premiere Speakers Bureau.

by Scott Ott

As neo-lib presidential candidate John McCain heads for the Republican nomination, and a November thrashing at the hands of Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton, conservatives across the land endure the dark night of the soul, wrestling with their consciences.

We reason in our hearts that at least Sen. McCain is right on fighting terrorists in Iraq, though he would be kinder and gentler interrogating those who strap bombs to retarded women and remotely trigger them in public pet markets.

At least, President McCain would maintain Gen. David Petraeus' strategy for crushing al Qaeda door-to-door in the cities, and winning over the tribal leaders in the provinces.

At least, President McCain could stare down Iran's Ahmadinejad and North Korea's Dear Leader. One can even hear him echo President Reagan's determined word to the Russian leader who sells nuke-tech to Iran: "Nyet!"

Of course, this doesn't assuage conservatives who feel they're watching from the beach as the prow of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan slips beneath the foam.

Even if some conservatives can rationalize their way into the booth in November, and can bring themselves to press the McCain icon on the touchscreen, it may not be enough. The straight-party Democrats can still beat him.

Recall that the inept, personality-free Sen. John Kerry did not get stomped by the marginally-conservative George W. Bush, and the unhinged former Vice President Al Gore actually won the popular vote. A Democrat-nominated inflatable porpoise would pull at least 49 percent of the popular vote in a general election. So, what chance does maverick McCain have against a ruthless machine like Hillary '08, or a well-organized, well-funded messianic movement like Obamamania?

Short story: Sen. McCain can't do it alone...but Team America could.

To bring principled fiscal, and social, conservatives into his campaign, Sen. McCain must take steps to neutralize his toxic flaws. The Team America strategy calls for the war hero to run as Commander-in-Chief, and to surround himself with Lt. Generals who compensate for his weaknesses in almost every other area.

Here's one potential roster for Team America.

Bring Fred Thompson on as vice president to serve as the Constitutional conscience of the administration -- an ideological gravitas behemoth -- who can do for President McCain what Dick Cheney has done for President Bush on foreign policy. Behind the scenes, Vice President Thompson offers President McCain private counsel, guided by our Founding Fathers, without drawing attention to himself. Mr. Thompson seems eminently qualified for such a role, eschewing publicity and advancing the cause which impelled him to mount his own White House bid.

Mike Huckabee has said that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reminds voters of "the guy who laid them off." This is, of course, precisely the kind of guy we need to tame our bloated bureaucracy. With Mitt Romney as director of the Office of Management and Budget, we can expect streamlined processes, spending cuts, tax cuts, departmental reorganization, hierarchy flattening, technology-driven customer service advances, and the desperately-needed headcount reduction that OMB Director Romney will surely spin as "right sizing." President McCain would simply loosen the leash and say, "Go crunch that data, Mitt, and bring me your recommendations and a cholesterol-free budget."

Rep. Tom Tancredo, the stalwart champion of secure borders and respect for the rule of law, would naturally serve as director of U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (formerly the INS). Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani could head up the Department of Homeland Security.

That leaves former Gov. Huckabee. You can't make him Secretary of Health and Human Services, because he'll ban smoking, trans-fats, salt and sugar, and create a massive new government program to fight obesity by forcing fat people to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure. However, he would make an excellent chaplain of the Senate, where his daily prayers would stir the hearts, and wring out the eyes, of the sternest legislator.

While that last suggestion was a bit facetious, the rest constitutes my sincere recommendation -- one that Sen. McCain ignores at his own peril...and ours.


Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly daily news satire site, contributing author of the forthcoming book "The New Media Frontier" (Sept. 2008, by Crossway), and a dynamic public speaker available through Premiere Speakers Bureau.

by Scott Ott

The survival of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign provides a powerful illustration of how profligate borrowing and irresponsible lending gets us in trouble.

As global financial markets continue to stagger under the burden of the subprime mortgage crisis, we learn today that Sen. McCain resuscitated his "mostly dead" White House bid ($500,000 in the red) with a massive loan involuntarily backed by the goodwill of his supporters. In November, the bank took his mailing list as collateral for a $3 million line of credit, almost all of which he blew in less than 30 days by betting on New Hampshire. As it turns out, his casino-style gamble with other people's money (OPM) strategy worked, and he lived to spend millions more of OPM.

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, at least he's risking a big chunk of his own cash on his candidacy, loaning his campaign some $18 million during the fourth quarter.

If the McCain campaign had collapsed, the banks held little but the hope that McCainiacs would pony up some pity money to bail out the debt. Of course, the bankers didn't see the loan as a wild risk. After all, John McCain is a U.S. Senator, and senators can always find cash. (They also secured the loan with a life insurance policy on the septuagenarian politician, which just makes sense.)

Subprime mortgage lending leads to upside-down debt-to-equity ratios when interest rates ascend -- houses that aren't worth what's owed on them. John McCain's subprime candidacy, if it succeeds in garnering the Republican nomination, will lead to an upside-down personality-to-principles ratio. In other words, we get a candidate who growls like Gen. George S. Patton, but votes like Sen. Harry "Pinky" Reid on immigration, tax cuts, global warming, drilling in Anwar, and other significant issues.

Oddly enough, Sen. McCain has flip-flopped on his own economic prowess -- once acknowledging it wasn't his strong suit, later bragging of his expertise. Now that we know he leveraged his faithful friends to wager on his ambition, without even asking them to co-sign the loan, perhaps we should marvel at his financial wizardry.

In November 2007, Sen. McCain could have acknowledged that his mismanaged campaign had burned through tens of millions of dollars with little to show for it. His own top adviser, Charles Black, said McCain had overestimated what he could raise, and had overspent. He could have shut the operation down, stopped the bleeding, and backed a more viable candidate for the good of the party. That would demonstrate fiscal restraint, prudence, humility and the willingness to make tough choices for the benefit of all Americans. In bowing out, he would have displayed the hallmarks of the conservatism he claims to embrace.

But instead, he placed an all-or-nothing bet, backed by the full faith and credit of people who are convinced that he's the man to lead us out of this economic morass, because he's not like those big-spending liberal Democrats who redistribute American wealth and mortgage our future to finance their agendas.

Given the track record of his own campaign, what can we expect from a President McCain when the nation is faced with trying economic times?

Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly daily news satire site, contributing author of the forthcoming book "The New Media Frontier" (Sept. 2008, by Crossway), and a dynamic public speaker available through Premiere Speakers Bureau.