I would take anything Jon Meacham writes with a huge grain of salt. I don’t know anyone who still reads Newsweek either (all six pages of it).
Anybody who considers Teddy an example of unmixed conservatism is more than a little confused.
Taft, perhaps. Not TR.
Never mind Meacham, Sam Tanenhaus is the real issue here.
This New York Times Book Review editor is alleged to be ‘a smart conservative.’
Facts on record do not support this.
Tanenhaus is a Rockefeller, cocktail conservative at best:
[”We were having a drink in a crepuscular bar on a warm summer evening in one of the hotel watering holes in the West 40s, between Grand Central Station and the old New York Times building, not far from the old offices of The New Yorker. It was a good place to meet and talk about Tanenhaus’s new book, The Death of Conservatism.”]
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-29/heartless-conservatives-unite/?cid=tag:all1
Tanenhaus is with the NRO RINO attacking Palin. They are very jealous of her success stopping ObamaCare with a Facebook posting:
[”On MSNBC Friday, anchor John Harwood spoke with New York Times Week in Review editor Sam Tanenhaus about the health care debate, wondering: “...you know an awful lot about the patron saint of modern conservatism William F. Buckley. What do you suppose Bill Buckley would think of the nature of the arguments that are being made against the Obama health care plan right now, death panels and all the rest?”
Harwood, hosting the 2:00PM ET weekly New York Times Edition broadcast, was asking about Tanenhaus’s upcoming book, ‘The Death of Conservatism.’ Tanenhaus argued: “Well, you know, one of the great contributions Bill Buckley made to conservatism was to move it toward the center. And one way he did that was to repudiate in a very forceful way what was then called the lunatic fringe.”
At that time, Harwood interjected: “The John Birch Society.” Tanenhaus continued: “And they weren’t necessarily a dangerous group, but what they did was discredit serious conservative arguments.” He then made the comparison to the current health care debate: “...and we may see in the days ahead where serious responsible Republicans and conservative thinkers say if they’re going to make a forceful argument the country can accept, they’ll have to cut themselves off from this more extreme view.”]
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/08/14/msnbc-uses-william-f-buckley-bash-health-care-opponents
Most telling is that Tanenhaus, like his fellow cocktail sipping nancy boys, DOESN’T GET PALIN.
[”Ms. Palin’s emergence as a national candidate was itself the outcome of tension within the party. Mr. McCain’s top choices were said to include Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania and Mr. Bush’s first director of homeland security, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman. Each was an experienced and prominent official. Each had established his strong loyalty to Mr. Bush, the party’s unrivaled leader. But both were also deemed insufficiently conservative by the party’s rank and file, and so were passed over. Mr. McCain’s inability to assert his will in this crucial matter was a clear sign of party fractiousness. And the sudden, dramatic emergence of Governor Palin — and the controversy that instantly greeted her candidacy — created the impression that Republican strategists had acted without the careful planning that had characterized their previous campaigns.”]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/weekinreview/05tanenhaus.html