Michael Gerson, Annoying Faux Conservative

I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. -Ronald Reagan

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Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson’s latest column in the Washington Post is yet more proof that Gerson should receive an award for Most Annoying Faux Conservative of 2008. Gerson continues to condescend to free market enthusiasts. In describing the various strains of conservativism, he writes:

More recently (and in an entirely different league of moral offensiveness), there is also the Republican libertarianism of former representative Dick Armey, who once declared Medicare “a program I would have no part of in a free world.” And of fiscal conservatives who proposed to delay the Medicare prescription drug benefit, or eliminate the president’s global AIDS initiative, as an offset for spending on Hurricane Katrina relief.

Mr. Gerson, if you are for Big Government, you are not a conservative. You offend real conservatives by your embrace of what some have called “compassion fascism.”

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