December 02, 2004

PATTERICO VS. HUGH HEWITT -- I'll take my stand with Patterico. Quotable:
I come from the school of principled Republicans exemplified by Spoons, Kevin Murphy, the Angry Clam, and Kathryn Jean Lopez. We are the most upset when Republicans fail to fight for what we believe to be core Republican principles: limited government, free speech, conservative judges, gun rights, and other bedrock conservative ideals ..

My most serious disagreement with [Hugh Hewitt] is in his advice that we should almost never criticize our own. I think we have to be willing to criticize our own where appropriate. The main reason for this is idealistic: I think that an allegiance to the truth is all-important. But if you need a practical reason, try this: an excessive partisanship can cost you credibility .. For example, like many, I thought President Bush did horribly in the first debate. By contrast, Hugh thought that the President had done wonderfully .. I think that if Hugh were less of a partisan, he might have been a bit more clear-eyed about the deficiencies in the President's performance. And I think that by expressing these deficiencies, Hugh would have gained some credibility with swing voters

via Calblog

UPDATE: Patterico sent along the following clarification:

I would like to emphasize my points of agreement with Hugh, as well as our points of disagreement. I intended for my post to reflect the fact that Hugh's book opened my mind to the benefits of a pragmatic approach. As I said in the post, I haven't become a pragmatist yet -- but some of Hugh's points sunk in. Hence the book giveaway -- I wanted to discuss this concept with others who (like me) tend to be more inflexibly principled.

Just wanted to clear up that my post wasn't intended to be wholly (or even primarily) critical of Hugh. If it were, I wouldn't be pushing his book and buying it for people.

UPDATE: PrestoPundit weighs in on Giuliani here. Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack