Pur et Dur

As (effectively) a call for unity among America’s conservatives the “Mount Vernon Statement” is, on the whole, fairly anodyne stuff. Fair enough. If there is to be any chance of defeating Obama in 2012 the various tribes of the right will have to work together. 

But then senior Republican Senator Jim DeMint came up with this:

A prominent conservative senator said that Washington political leaders should “be replaced” if they do not back a document of conservative principles signed Wednesday. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) deemed it necessary that politicians endorse the Mount Vernon Statement, a document outlining a vision of “constitutional conservatism” backed by a number of right-wing activists.

This is the same DeMint who once said this:

“I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”

To (shamelessly) quote myself from last year:

 If it comes to a choice, I’d rather have 60 Republicans in the Senate, however squishy some of the views of some in their ranks, than 60 Democrats who are all certain of theirs. Anyone who truly believes in limited government ought to understand that voting against can be as valid as voting for. If it takes a few Specters [That was then] to see off a Democratic majority, so be it. 

 As for the idea that reducing the GOP to a rump of true believers (whatever that might actually mean: there are plenty on the right who interpret the terms “limited government” and “free people” in very different ways) is the essential first step in a Republican restoration, it is, I am afraid, a bad mistake. Wildernesses are, almost always, for losers.