Republicans torn by recriminations, ideological purges?

THE GROWING RANKS OF THE CONSERVATIVE PURGED.
Critical Mass

by Spencer Ackerman
TNR Online
Post date 08.07.06

The Heritage Foundation has never been known as an intellectually adventurous place. For decades, its policy briefs and studies have closely tracked Republican talking points. So did the opinions of the think tank's senior foreign policy analyst, John Hulsman. In his Washington Times op-eds and Fox News appearances, he cheerfully whacked Howard Dean, John Kerry, the French, and other enemies of the cause.

But all these years of fidelity to the conservative cause couldn't spare Hulsman from suffering the wrath of his comrades. On July 7, his boss, Kim Holmes, sent a note to the Heritage staff wishing Hulsman "the very best in his continuing career." No one at Heritage was fooled by Holmes's euphemistic send-off--least of all Hulsman. "After getting fired," he says, "I was a walking corpse."

Following Holmes's lead, the official line from Heritage is that Hulsman left his $90,000-a-year job of his own volition. Indeed, two Heritage spokespeople initially denied to me that Hulsman was shown the door. When I pressed them, both then told me that the think tank doesn't discuss its "human resources policies." The reasons for Hulsman's departure, however, are perfectly evident. "At Heritage," says Chris Preble of the Cato Institute, "anything that smacks of criticism of Bush will not be tolerated." And, as the Iraq war faltered, Hulsman grew increasingly bold in criticizing the administration's foreign policy in essays and conversations with reporters. In September, he will co-publish a book with the New American Foundation's Anatol Lieven titled Ethical Realism, a scathing indictment of the neoconservative worldview. With his firing, Hulsman joins Bruce Bartlett, the economist who was dismissed from a right-wing think tank for his criticisms of Bush, in the ranks of the conservative purged.

And in the coming months, their ranks will likely grow even larger. Conservative recriminations over Iraq are igniting all across Washington, with opponents of the war loudly assaulting its leading champions (see Francis Fukuyama v. Charles Krauthammer and George Will v. William Kristol.) But what the Hulsman incident reveals is that the war's supporters aren't about to passively absorb criticism and issue public apologies. They are going to fight back against their critics--and an ugly debate will become much uglier.



[..] When I spoke with Hulsman a few weeks [after his dismissal], he told me that a non-disclosure agreement prohibited him from providing any details about the terms of his departure. But he was eager to speak about the ideological and policy differences that prompted it. Despite his firing, he continues to harbor warm memories of the think tank. When he arrived there in 1999 to revitalize its European studies program, Heritage seemed an exciting and intellectually open place to work. "It was always a big tent," he remembers. "There was a sense that you had authoritarians, neocons, realists and libertarians, all bubbling along." But what Hulsman took for intellectual freedom may simply have been ideological incoherence. In the '90s, no foreign policy doctrine dominated the party, and different factions vied for dominance. The brand of foreign policy that Hulsman espoused--a dispassionate realism and distaste for both liberal and neoconservative interventionist impulses--resided close to the party's mainstream. That, of course, changed with the Bush administration's aggressive response to September 11, which quickly rallied a new doctrinal consensus among conservatives.

As that consensus emerged, Hulsman hesitated to buck the administration and repeat his old complaints about moralistic foreign policy. In 2004, several of Hulsman's friends established the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy--a loose anti-neocon confederation of liberal and conservative realists--but he declined to add his name to any of the coalition's manifestos. "People at Heritage said, 'You've gotta be careful signing this,'" Hulsman recounts. "I think there was general unease about me not hopping on the freedom train."

But years of insurgency, civil war, and general chaos emanating from Iraq emboldened Hulsman to finally vocalize his dissent. Last summer, he and Lieven penned a National Interest essay contending that the neconservatives--and, implicitly, Bush--were "expending blood and treasure for problematic gains such as Iraq" and "significantly retarding America's ability to act against the true barbarians at the gate." In March, Hulsman vociferously argued against the arch-neocon Michael Ledeen during a House International Relations Committee hearing on Iran policy. He was subsequently informed that he was not to write anything on Iran for Heritage.

Soon after publishing their National Interest essay, Hulsman and Lieven signed a deal with Pantheon to expand their argument into a book, which will be released next month. "I worried about getting fired, but we keep encouraging people to believe in moral courage, so we had to show some," Hulsman says. As the book's publication date loomed, however, Heritage began worrying about his doctrinal deviations and the attention they would receive. "They had a desire to see what the book said ahead of time," he says. "I had a desire to say it was none of their business." And although Hulsman won't say what exactly happened next, that was the end of his seven-year affiliation with the Heritage Foundation.



The key figure in Hulsman's demise is Kim Holmes, who has directed Heritage's foreign policy program almost continuously since 1992. Holmes is an unlikely defender of neoconservatism. When William Kristol and Robert Kagan published their seminal 1996 neocon manifesto, "Toward A Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy," Holmes laid waste to it in the pages of Foreign Affairs, denouncing it as "low on strategic clarity" and "pure escapism." Days before September 11, he sneered at the idea of the United States acting as a "global policeman."

But that was before he went to work as the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs in 2002. Over the next three years, Holmes quickly ditched all his old qualms about moralistic foreign policy. And when he returned to Heritage last summer, he began proselytizing for the administration's foreign policy with a convert's zeal. Last April, in a speech, he contended that "[t]here can be no real security in America without the advance of liberty in the world," an almost word-for-word quote from Bush's second inaugural address. With Holmes's new outlook, it was only a matter of time before Hulsman found himself in his boss' crosshairs. When I sought comment from Holmes about the Hulsman affair, he first denied to me that Hulsman was fired and then demanded I give him the name of the poor Heritage press flack who transferred my call. (I politely declined.)

While some believe that Holmes's long knives are simply a matter of enforcing Bush's prerogatives within the GOP, Hulsman gives his old boss more credit. "Kim began to adhere to the views of the administration," he says, "He sincerely changed his mind." But he predicts that the recriminations at Heritage--and throughout the conservative movement--will soon intensify. "If the midterms go badly, the civil war in the GOP starts the day after," Hulsman says. "The neocons and Kristol will say that Bush is incompetent and the neocons are not to blame." Maybe then it'll be Hulsman who leads the next purge.

Colorado GOP clash lingers

R.I. Republicans back moderate senator

No endorsement from retiring Republican

6 September 2006

A Colorado Republican retiring after 20 years in the House said Wednesday he will not endorse the GOP primary winner, accusing him of running a "sleazy" campaign.

Rep. Joel Hefley (news, bio, voting record) said he hopes his decision doesn't hurt other Republicans on the ticket in November, but he said he will not support the Republican nominee, Doug Lamborn.

"I made this clear at the start of this campaign that I would never again support a Republican who ran a sleazy campaign against another Republican, and that's what Doug Lamborn did," Hefley said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's not good when we have these angry, bitter campaigns (against Democrats). It's sure not good when we have them within the party."

Lamborn campaign manager John Hotaling said the candidate ran a "clean, positive campaign." He blamed the negative ads on outside groups.

Hefley's backed his former aide, Jeff Crank, who came in a close second in the contentious six-way primary Aug. 8.

Hefley said he doesn't see himself endorsing the Democrat, Jay Fawcett.

Groups campaigning on Lamborn's behalf criticized Crank and others during the primary. One mailer from the Colorado Christian Coalition accused Crank of "public support for members and efforts of the homosexual agenda."

Almost a month later, Crank's supporters were so upset at Lamborn's win, they tried to recruit Hefley to run as a write-in for his old seat. Hefley turned them down.

Experts say the rift within the GOP has given Democrats their best chance to win the seat. The Colorado Springs-area district is home to the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family.

Hefley said he doesn't think Lamborn will lose, but he is worried Republicans will stay home on Election Day. That could hurt other statewide GOP candidates, particularly Rep. Bob Beauprez (news, bio, voting record), R-Colo., who is running for governor against former Denver district attorney Bill Ritter, a Democrat.

Statewide Republicans generally need to win big in the 5th District to offset Democratic votes in Boulder and other cities.

Primary day a warm-up for November vote

In Arizona, one House candidate called party officials idiots. In Rhode Island, ad-makers turned a Senate hopeful into a political pinata.

And that's just Republicans attacking Republicans ahead of Tuesday's nine-state primary night, the busiest of the year. [..]

In a Tucson-area seat in Arizona, the National Republican Congressional Committee has run an ad supporting Steve Huffman, praising him as an advocate of lower taxes and a "common sense approach to immigration that puts security first." Huffman is "the conservative choice," said the commercial.

A recent poll showed Huffman trailing a former state lawmaker, Randy Graf.

Graf won 43 percent of the primary vote in an unsuccessful run against Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record) two years ago, but party officials have expressed concerns he may be too conservative to win the seat in November.

The decision by strategists in Washington to intervene did not impress Graf or the three other contenders for the nomination. They held a news conference to criticize the move.

"They're idiots," said one, former state party chairman Mike Hellon. He and the three other Republicans running said the GOP had split the party and they predicted Democrats would benefit. [..]

Chafee targeted in graphic automated calls about abortion

Friday, September 8, 2006

PROVIDENCE -- Less than a week before the Republican primary, Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee has become the target of a push poll attacking him for supporting abortion rights.

A push poll is a telephone survey in which questions are designed to weaken support for one candidate or build up support for another. The negative campaign tactic is illegal in some states, but not Rhode Island.

Chafee, who is running for a second full term, faces Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey in Tuesday's Republican primary.

Several voters said yesterday that they received automated telephone calls asking whether they would vote in the primary and which candidate they would choose. Those who chose Chafee heard graphic descriptions of an abortion procedure opponents call "partial-birth abortion," which the poll said Chafee supports.

Eva Geoppo, 57, of Providence, said she received four phone calls because she has multiple phone lines at home. On the first call she received, she chose Chafee when asked who she planned to vote for.

"It just freaked me out," said Geoppo, who owns a general contracting business. "They said something along the lines of 'Do you realize Senator Chafee is for partial-birth abortions and he's a war monger?' "

The next time, she chose Laffey.

"It was 'Do you need a ride to the polls?' " she said.

Late yesterday, the Chafee campaign called on Laffey to denounce the "dirty-tricks" campaign "being practiced on his behalf" by a shadowy group organized in such a way that voters here are prevented from even "knowing who is funding these attacks."

"While federal law requires outside advocacy groups to disclose who their donors are, this organization has been able to exploit their status to avoid having to disclose their contributors," said Chafee campaign manager Ian Lang.

In response, the Laffey camp said: "We have never heard of this organization, and we have nothing to do with them, but we would say that these kind of tactics have no place in a political campaign and we would discourage any campaign or organization from employing these tactics, including the Chafee campaign."

Geoppo said the call came from a group named Common Sense, which Chafee's campaign identified as Common Sense 2006, an Ohio-based organization that has been running a series of negative TV ads against that state's pro-choice gubernatorial candidate, Democrat Ted Strickland.

Common Sense's telephone line rang busy, and chairman Zeke Swift did not immediately respond to a message left at the number listed for him.

Neb. Roundup: Bush Visit Points to GOP Vulnerability

Nov. 03, 2006

Nebraska's 3rd District: