Huh?

In an otherwise excellent article on perhaps the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives, William McGurn continues to make the same mistake so many on their side and the Brooks/Frum Axis of Stupid on our side has made all along; Obama and his cabinet/czars/advisors are not the "best and the brightest". They are, maybe, relatively more ‘intelligent’ than the average IQ but to a person they are nothing more than an echo chamber for statist, Marxist policy that anyone of average intelligence knows will never work:

Many of the people in the Obama administration, the president included, enjoy all the credentials we associate with the best and the brightest: the right schools, the good grades, the successful careers.

The "right schools" debate notwithstanding, what "good grades"? What "successful careers"? The egghead cabinet in place now hasn’t ever left academia. They know nothing but what their professors before them instilled in their minds. Trust me, I know eggheads, they’re the dumbest people on the planet because they utterly fail to accept the fundamental truth about human nature that individuals are not infinitely malleable by the State. An ideology based on universal compliance cannot work where free will exists. It’s that simple.

Mr. McGurn continues, however:

Alas, whether it be allocating health care or defining the kind of jobs the economy ought to create, the policies they favor suggest a strong belief that they know what’s best not just for themselves, but for everyone else too.

That’s not ‘intelligence’ or ‘smarts’, that’s sick hubris. That’s uncontrolled arrogance. Since when does being smart entail a belief that you are better than everyone around you? It doesn’t.

In any event, Mr. McGurn does make an important point that’s relevant to the debate we’re having on our side about the desirability of a third-party candidate, whether for President in 2012 or in any of the dozens of Congressional races in 2010. While I am fully sympathetic to the argument that there is little difference between the two major parties today, I still believe that there is this one fundamental bedrock that still separates us from them:

The difference is that we trust free citizens to make decisions about themselves—and are skeptical about government.

Now, I admit that it hasn’t seemed that the greater Republican party has acted this way over the last decade. That much is true. But I also believe that the most important consequence of this year’s tea parties is to re-illuminate and focus that difference, and empower more legitimately Conservative candidates to challenge the mainstream Republicans for the soul of the party.

But at the end of the day, we will lose if we split off. The historical evidence for this fact is overwhelming and it won’t work this time around either. We highlighted the poll yesterday that indicated that a hypothetical ‘Tea Party’ candidate would beat a Republican but would lose to the Democrat. That’s most likely what would happen.

I for one will continue, as I have for years, to preach the rightness of Conservatism unabashedly and proudly. I will call out RINO’s and DIABLO’s wherever I see them and do my best to explain the wrongness of their views. I promise to be relentless in admonishing the eggheads on our side who really are no different than the eggheads on their side.

But when it comes down to the time to pull the lever, I will pull it for the Republican no matter what, including over a third-party on our side. I’ll do that because we will lose if we don’t. I urge all of my fellow Conservatives to do the same.

We’re making a difference in swinging the GOP back to first principles and we should continue that fight right up until election day. I was there on 9/12 and on 12/5 and I’ll be there whenever I can to continue to let the GOP know that they’ve strayed too far.

We have a real chance to swing the balance of power back to the right side in 2010. Let’s not blow it.

UPDATE: Before I even post this, Sarah says the same thing . Get your house in order GOP so she, or we, don’t have to do it for you.