A profoundly dishonest narrative about the Republican presidential field has taken root in the blogosphere. Mitt Romney, we’re told, is the smooth-talking phony whose conservatism is mostly fraudulent, while Rick Perry is the “conservative of conviction” whose only real shortcomings concern presentation.

Though this narrative depends on several disingenuous attacks on Romney, it must be admitted that Romney is far from ideal, and his actual flip-flops are certainly legitimate targets. I supported Romney in 2008 but this time around would have preferred to see either John Bolton or Rick Santorum become viable candidates (I haven’t entirely given up on Santorum just yet), and I temporarily favored Michele Bachmann until she collapsed under the weight of her own ineptness. Though I have several issues with Herman Cain, I understand the appeal of his obvious sincerity. I respect the desire for a suitable Not Romney.

What I don’t respect, however, is a constant barrage of complaints about one flip-flopping, moderate governor by hypocritical apologists for another flip-flopping, moderate governor. I’ve blogged before on how Rick Perry’s conservatism is greatly exaggerated, and now that the practice of banning commenters who support flip-flopping candidates has earned the RedState Seal of Approval, I think it’s time to take a long overdue look at the Texan Messiah’s surprisingly long record of shifting views and principles.

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Something’s rotten in Denmark—or, in this case, the blogosphere. Much of the Right seems to have united around Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who currently leads the 2012 Republican pack by a wide margin, thanks to a combination of Texas’ impressive job-creation record, his bold, take-no-prisoners style, and his ostensible conservatism on all the major issues.

Except…he’s not all that conservative, or all that appealing a candidate. He’s got a horrendous immigration record, he initially tried to use states’ rights as an excuse to punt on gay marriage and abortion, his 2008 pick was the radically pro-abortion Rudy Giuliani, he’s a practitioner of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare, he seems to have an Obama-like ego, he’s a surprisingly clumsy debater (to the point where he can’t even give a compelling defense of his own position on global warming), and, in the scandal that’s been getting the most press lately, he signed an executive order trying to force young schoolgirls to be injected with an unproven vaccine meant to prevent an illness which children cannot contract in schools through casual contact.

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Note: the following article was originally written in early June for another venue, but I’ve reprinted it here because I think its point is still relevant.

What a difference a couple of election cycles make. In 2004, with solid majorities opposing gay marriage, Republicans aggressively campaigned on the issue, contributing significantly to the reelection of President George W. Bush and the passage of marriage protection laws in over 40 states. Congressional Republicans introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment repeatedly between 2002 and 2006.

Fast-forward to 2011. Support for gay marriage has been steadily rising since 2006, finally reaching a 53% majority in a March 18 ABC News/Washington Post poll. On May 6, Gallup found that just 15% of Republicans consider social issues their top priority.

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Note: the following article was originally written in early June for another venue, but I’ve reprinted it here because I think its point is still relevant.

Thanks largely to the Tea Party movement, the United States is thinking harder about individual liberty and states’ rights than she has in years. But despite identifying the problem, conservatives aren’t any closer to enacting a viable long-term solution for taming our federal leviathan.

Several efforts show promise. Many states have challenged the constitutionality of ObamaCare’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance, guaranteeing an eventual ruling from the Supreme Court. Though worth doing, that’s far too risky a basket to put all our eggs in, since it relies on a majority of the justices to rule based on the text of the Constitution rather than their personal ideologies.

In his popular book Men in Black, constitutional scholar and talk radio host Dr. Mark Levin suggests that Congress should restrain such activist judges via its constitutional authority to place limits on the courts’ jurisdiction and to impeach especially odious judges, and advocates constitutional amendments to give judges term limits and give Congress a supermajority veto over Supreme Court decisions. All these proposals are worth exploring in further detail, but even if enacted, there would still be legislative statism to deal with. 

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With some high profile center-right bloggers outraged by the American Conservative Union’s decision not to continue gay Republican group GOProud’s sponsorship of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, it’s worth listing a few points about GOProud and CPAC the finger wavers should think about:

1. GOProud’s position on marriage: “Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment.  Marriage should be a question for the states.  A federal constitutional amendment on marriage would be an unprecedented federal power grab from the states.” Deferring marriage policy to the states is a respectable (albeit mistaken, in my view) conservative position; referring to the marriage amendment as “anti-gay” is not.
2. GOProud’s stated support for marriage federalism is highly misleading. The organization wants to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, falsely suggesting the law interferes with the right of the states to set marriage policy. DOMA is not a federal same-sex marriage ban, but merely a federal guarantee that individual states won’t be forced to recognize or adopt the marriage definitions of other states. What good is it for GOProud to say they support states’ rights on the issue if they want to leave the states defenseless against activist judges?

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Note: the following article was originally written in late June for another venue, but I’ve reprinted it here because I think its point is still relevant.

Hardcore libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and rabid leftist Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) have united for a cause near and dear to many a crank’s heart: drug legalization. The two have introduced a bill to all but end the federal War on Drugs. While their proposal would still let the feds prohibit the transfer of marijuana across state lines and keep it from entering the country, it would recognize the states’ authority to legalize pot within their borders if they so choose.

Constitutionally, it’s not the federal government’s job to handle the states’ internal affairs, and as we struggle to trim the fat from our debt-ridden, bureaucratic federal government, every little bit helps. Also, comparing the results of varying drug policies in newly empowered states would help us clearly see whether or not legalizers’ rosy predictions of safer narcotics and collapsing cartels actually come true.

So, is Paul-Frank a win-win? Not quite.

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Note: the following article was originally written in early June for another venue, but I’ve reprinted it here because I think its point is still relevant.

A recent Fox News segment concerning federal funding for video games has provoked outrage from gaming news websites, and while the hyperventilating of professional nerds might not seem noteworthy at first glance, the sad spectacle deserves to be revisited because it offers a troubling window into how liberals consolidate political influence over apolitical constituencies.

The National Endowment for the Arts has decided that video games of particular artistic or educational merit can qualify for federal grants, so Fox ran a debate on the decision between Icrontic.com editor-in-chief Brian Ambrozy and conservative radio host Neal Asbury. Admittedly, the Fox anchor wrongly suggested that big-budget action games like “Call of Duty” were the NEA’s focus rather than smaller projects by independent developers, and Asbury didn’t perform particularly well, having little more to offer the discussion besides generic platitudes about runaway spending. But the geek brigade saw something more nefarious at work.

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As Ann Coulter extensively discussed in her hit books Godless and Guilty, one of liberals’ favorite tricks is to have their lies parroted by spokesmen who their opponents will be too scared to hit back against properly (if at all), for fear of being seen as “mean” toward a victim or national hero. Now, the forces allied against Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair efforts in Wisconsin have just such an infallible shill of their own.

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Just because we’re past the Fourth of July weekend doesn’t mean the fireworks have to end. On July 5, Bernard Goldberg impugned Geraldo Rivera’s credibility in no uncertain terms on The O’Reilly Factor:

“I wonder if Geraldo and others who think like Geraldo would be so open minded if let’s say a militia man in Arizona was accused of killing a Hispanic immigrant, and the evidence was similar to this case — a mountain of circumstantial evidence,” he said. “You think Geraldo Rivera would go on the air and talk to you the way he did?”

Predictably outraged that Bernie dared to state the obvious, Geraldo responded on July 8:

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Dear Dane County Board of Supervisors,

I have several questions regarding the letter twelve of you wrote to Justice David Prosser, in which you ask him to take a leave of absence from the Wisconsin Supreme Court until investigators determine whether or not he strangled Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.

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