Quin Hillyer: Dunkirk Conservatism
[Quin Hillyer is a senior editorial writer at the Washington Times and senior editor of The American Spectator.]
The greatest rescue operation in history began in full 70 years ago today. In nine days beginning May 27, 1940, the British Navy and hundreds upon hundreds of private vessels rescued an astonishing 338,266 men from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk, France, all while under constant bombardment from German air and land forces that killed 68,111 Brits and captured as many as another 80,000. Instead of Great Britain being left at the mercy of the German death machine, the island nation had saved an army big enough to repel a Nazi invasion.
As Winston Churchill rightly noted: "We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations."
American conservatives right now do not seem to realize that we are in the immediate post-Dunkirk phase of a desired political recovery.
All around the country, I hear conservatives talking giddily about how many seats Republicans will pick up in this fall's congressional elections, and about how many of those Republicans will be true conservatives.
Newt Gingrich, for instance, is out there playing his usual game of speaking extravagantly about a coming victory. On May 18, he forecast up to a 70-seat gain in Republican House seats. On May 20, on the basis of one special election, he downgraded his prediction to "the 30-to-50-seat range" -- which still would be mighty impressive, by historical standards. This sort of volatility is nothing new: This is the same Gingrich who promised a 30-seat Republican House pickup in 1998, only to see an actual loss of five seats instead.
Maybe we should learn something from 1998. Or from 1980, where polls six days before Election Day had Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in a dead heat, only to see Reagan win 489 out of 538 electoral votes. Conventional wisdom says that "six months is an eternity in politics." Actually, six days is an eternity in politics. Six months might as well be "infinity and beyond."
WHICH LEADS US BACK to Dunkirk. On the same day the evacuation began, the British War Cabinet came close to an ignominious deal with Italy's Mussolini that would amount to agreeing to permanent Nazi/Fascist domination of the European continent -- so close that only Churchill's dogged willpower stood between the deal and a continued battle for civilization. Yet six days after coming so close to what amounted to surrender, a quarter-million soldiers already had been evacuated, and it was clear that the Brits would indeed live to fight another day. Six days from apparent defeat to survival.
Yes, six days is an eternity.
That's why the current conservative giddiness is misplaced. Yes, the more conservative candidates won general elections in New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Hawaii, and conservatives have won primaries in Utah, West Virginia, and Idaho, while conservatives have surged or even forced more liberal candidates out of races in Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and elsewhere. Good. But all that means is that conservatives can now again wage a real fight. It means we have avoided the rout that the Obama-Pelosi-ACORN-SEIU brigades had planned for us. We have been evacuated. But our political D-Day, and V-E Day, and V-J Day, remain a long, long way off, and the outcome is by no means assured...
Read entire article at American Spectator
The greatest rescue operation in history began in full 70 years ago today. In nine days beginning May 27, 1940, the British Navy and hundreds upon hundreds of private vessels rescued an astonishing 338,266 men from the harbor and beaches of Dunkirk, France, all while under constant bombardment from German air and land forces that killed 68,111 Brits and captured as many as another 80,000. Instead of Great Britain being left at the mercy of the German death machine, the island nation had saved an army big enough to repel a Nazi invasion.
As Winston Churchill rightly noted: "We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations."
American conservatives right now do not seem to realize that we are in the immediate post-Dunkirk phase of a desired political recovery.
All around the country, I hear conservatives talking giddily about how many seats Republicans will pick up in this fall's congressional elections, and about how many of those Republicans will be true conservatives.
Newt Gingrich, for instance, is out there playing his usual game of speaking extravagantly about a coming victory. On May 18, he forecast up to a 70-seat gain in Republican House seats. On May 20, on the basis of one special election, he downgraded his prediction to "the 30-to-50-seat range" -- which still would be mighty impressive, by historical standards. This sort of volatility is nothing new: This is the same Gingrich who promised a 30-seat Republican House pickup in 1998, only to see an actual loss of five seats instead.
Maybe we should learn something from 1998. Or from 1980, where polls six days before Election Day had Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in a dead heat, only to see Reagan win 489 out of 538 electoral votes. Conventional wisdom says that "six months is an eternity in politics." Actually, six days is an eternity in politics. Six months might as well be "infinity and beyond."
WHICH LEADS US BACK to Dunkirk. On the same day the evacuation began, the British War Cabinet came close to an ignominious deal with Italy's Mussolini that would amount to agreeing to permanent Nazi/Fascist domination of the European continent -- so close that only Churchill's dogged willpower stood between the deal and a continued battle for civilization. Yet six days after coming so close to what amounted to surrender, a quarter-million soldiers already had been evacuated, and it was clear that the Brits would indeed live to fight another day. Six days from apparent defeat to survival.
Yes, six days is an eternity.
That's why the current conservative giddiness is misplaced. Yes, the more conservative candidates won general elections in New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Hawaii, and conservatives have won primaries in Utah, West Virginia, and Idaho, while conservatives have surged or even forced more liberal candidates out of races in Florida, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and elsewhere. Good. But all that means is that conservatives can now again wage a real fight. It means we have avoided the rout that the Obama-Pelosi-ACORN-SEIU brigades had planned for us. We have been evacuated. But our political D-Day, and V-E Day, and V-J Day, remain a long, long way off, and the outcome is by no means assured...