I can’t say i know a lot about the work of John Fund. I think he shills for the neo-cons in the Wall Street Journal. I see him there and National Review, but I don’t often read him. I suspect his will be one of the jobs automated in the future. Anyway, he has this post up at NRO. It is emblematic of what is defective with the conservative mind. They confuse policy, principles and politics. The current fight in DC has very little to do with policy and nothing to do with principle. It is primarily a political fight. Both parties fear they are losing their base. The best way to win over doubters is to pick a fight with the enemy. John Boehner is not a genius, but he figured out that he had to go along with the conservative members on this and take a stand. Otherwise they risked losing big in next year’s election. In the end, they may have to accept some minor cuts here or there, which will amount to nothing, but they will have rallied the base for the next fights.

Fund, like all of Conservative Inc does not get it.

The notion that adding a defund-Obamacare provision to the continuing resolution or debt-ceiling measure would actually result in defunding Obamacare sounded too much like the strategy the “underpants gnomes” adopted in that classic episode of South Park. The kids discover that gnomes are stealing people’s underpants.

I hope I get a chance to negotiate with these guys once in my life. I will become fabulously rich. In politics, you start out knowing you will cut a deal. Your goal is to make the other guy look awful so he will give you better terms. Forcing that old pervert Hairy Reed to go on TV and defend this mess is good politics. Any time you can get Pelosi or the Aging JAP on TV is a good day for Republicans. They will inevitably say something so bat-shit crazy the public will recoil in horror. Conservative Inc never seems to get this and instead demands immediate surrender so they can regroup for another day, when they have the policy just right.

Of course, part of this is that old hacks like Fund don’t want to rock the boat. He makes a nice living repeating what he is told on TV and in print. He is invested in the status quo. Still, even guys who are willing to speak their mind and should know better often confuse the three “P’s” of public discourse. Liberals seldom make this error. They aim to win first and figure out the other stuff later. It’s why they tend to win all of the fights.