Push-Pull

POLITICAL correctness often succeeds by creating the illusion that no other points of view exist. Go to a bookstore, for example, in a tony liberal neighborhood, and you will see that books by, say, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are not displayed prominently (as would befit their bestseller status), but filed away on the shelves. When is a bestseller not a bestseller? When it contains views the PC. crowd would like to wish away.

The ultimate expression of this desire to erase the other side may be the oft- heard claim that the culture war is over, and that conservatives lost. After the Republican love-fest in Philadelphia, with Pat Buchanan gone and social conservatism invisible, the culture war was supposed to be finished. But ever since the appearance of that blue-red map of the Gore and Bush nations, the persistence of our social divide has become inescapable. Indeed, President Bush’s understanding of the indispensable role of social conservatives in his coalition is what led to the current culture clash over John Ashcroft.

About the Author

Stanley Kurtz

Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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POLITICAL correctness often succeeds by creating the illusion that no other points of view exist. Go to a bookstore, for example, in a tony liberal neighborhood, and you will see that books by, say, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are not displayed prominently (as would befit their bestseller status), but filed away on the shelves. When is a bestseller not a bestseller? When it contains views the PC. crowd would like to wish away.

The ultimate expression of this desire to erase the other side may be the oft- heard claim that the culture war is over, and that conservatives lost. After the Republican love-fest in Philadelphia, with Pat Buchanan gone and social conservatism invisible, the culture war was supposed to be finished. But ever since the appearance of that blue-red map of the Gore and Bush nations, the persistence of our social divide has become inescapable. Indeed, President Bush’s understanding of the indispensable role of social conservatives in his coalition is what led to the current culture clash over John Ashcroft.