OUT OF IDEAS? NO, THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM

George Packer has an interesting article in the New Yorker, "The Fall of Conservatism: Have the Republicans run out of ideas?" and Rich Lowry provides the answer to why conservatism is in decline. First of all, let's not forget what Lowry himself wrote back in 2005 in the pages of National Review. Here's the cover from that issue, courtesy of Sadly, No!:



And this is the title and first sentence of the accompanying article:

What Went Right
How the U.S. began to quell the insurgency in Iraq
April 27, 2005, 7:59 a.m.
Rich Lowry

It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq.

This is from Packer's article:

Lowry, who received the editorship from Buckley before he turned thirty, told me that he particularly regretted a 2005 cover story he’d written with the headline “WE’RE WINNING.” He said, “Most of the right was in lockstep with Donald Rumsfeld. We didn’t want to admit we were losing and said anyone who said otherwise was a defeatist. One thing I’ve loved about conservatism is its keen sense of reality, and that was totally lost in 2006."

Let's not forget that Pres. Fredo aided and abetted that loss by lying to us about what was happening in Iraq and he's even admitted it to ABC News' Martha Raddatz on 4/11/2008.