Required Reading

At National Review, Jonah Goldberg finds a couple of silver linings in President Obama’s swearing in:

He wasn’t my first choice, but he is nonetheless my president. And if ever there were a wonderful consolation prize in politics, shattering the race barrier in the White House is surely it.

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Indeed. More interesting however is this observation:

By hastening the end of the Cold War, Reagan took away the defining cause of the conservative movement. The right had other issues, to be sure. But anti-communism was the coalitional glue. And while principled conservatives were happy to trade a live campaign issue for a dead Soviet Union, the damage to conservative cohesion was real.

If Obama lives up to the dreams of his supporters in writing a new, post-racial chapter for America, he will have at once done more for America than any Democratic president in generations. But he also will have cut the knot holding much of the left together.

While I certainly hope Jonah is right about — at last! — a post-racial America, I’m less sure about that last bit. Because until health care is nationalized, unions are mandatory everywhere, and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber, then there will be plenty to hold the Left together.

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