David Keene

As we have been noting over the last several week, more and more right-wing groups are dropping out of CPAC, angry that organizers have allowed the gay conservative group GOProud to participate.

Many of these same groups have also been angry at Gov. Mitch Daniels ever since he called for a "truce" in the culture war, so I guess it was only a matter of time before groups like the American Principles Project (which kicked off the boycott of CPAC) would start attacking Daniels for agreeing to participate in CPAC:

"Unfortunately, while Governor Daniels is slated to speak at CPAC's 'Reagan Dinner,' he has failed to understand how Ronald Reagan fused the three critical legs of the conservative movement into one coherent governing philosophy," says Andy Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project. "Discarding one makes the whole obsolete."

..."Governor Daniels' selection is an affront to the millions of conservatives who believe that social issues such as abortion and traditional marriage are non-negotiable."

According to CPAC organizers, Haley Barbour, Liz Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, Tim Pawlenty, Rick Perry, Paul Ryan, Rick Santorum are all "confirmed speakers" at this year's event, as is Michele Bachmann.

So is their participation an "affront to the millions of conservatives" as well?  Will the Religious Right start also attacking them for participating in CPAC too? 

UPDATE: Upon reading the entire APP statement, it turns out that they were slamming CPAC for inviting Daniels, not Daniels for attending CPAC (which, frankly, makes even less sense): 

The American Principles Project today blasted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for giving a major platform to potential 2012 presidential candidate Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who recently called on Republicans to make a “truce” on social issues, abandoning a key tenet of the conservative movement.

“Unfortunately, while Governor Daniels is slated to speak at CPAC’s ‘Reagan Dinner,’ he has failed to understand how Ronald Reagan fused the three critical legs of the conservative movement into one coherent governing philosophy,” said Andy Blom, executive director of the American Principles Project. “Discarding one makes the whole obsolete.”

In November, the group organized a coalition of conservative organizations protesting CPAC’s inclusion of GOProud because it is “fundamentally incompatible with a movement that has long embraced the ideals of family and faith,” it wrote in a letter to CPAC Chairman David Keene and his fellow board members.

“Governor Daniels’ selection is an affront to the millions of conservatives who believe that social issues such as abortion and traditional marriage are non-negotiable.”

Since APP launched the coalition, concern has grown and other groups have pulled out of the conference, including many past sponsors.

“The Beltway wisdom among Republican insiders boils down to a simple mantra: Social issues are a thing of the past. But this theory falls apart outside of the Washington bubble. The Republican sweep in the House was dominated by pro-life, pro-family candidates, and polling shows large majorities want to see action on these issues,” said Mr. Blom.

APP has already announced that it is boycotting CPAC because it is insufficiently socially conservative.  So what exactly do they think they are going to accomplish by slamming CPAC for inviting someone, like Daniels, who they also think is insufficiently socially conservative?

As the Religious Right’s boycott of the American Conservative Union’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) builds momentum, Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily has called for exclusion of the ACU from the “conservative movement” as a result of their connections with GOProud, a conservative gay-rights group that is a sponsor of CPAC. Organizations including the American Principles Project, American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Concerned Women For America, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Family Research Council have decided to boycott CPAC over GOProud’s participation. GOProud wants to shrink the clout of the Religious Right in the Republican Party and referred to such groups “dinosaurs headed to political extinction.”

Farah, who previously compared GOProud to the Ku Klux Klan, joins other right wing activists in believing that GOProud is an assault on the wider conservative movement. He likens the Religious Right’s opposition to GOProud to the Biblical story of Gideon: When Giden raised up an army to free the Israelites from the Midianites and end idol-worshipping, God ultimately ordered Gideon to reduce his army from thirty-two thousand to just three hundred or otherwise “Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me’” (Judges 7:2). Farah writes that conservatives, like Gideon, should “purge” their ranks of those who embrace “enemies of moral values” like GOProud:

If the U.S. "conservative movement" is to survive, prosper and be a force for reclaiming everything that made America unique and great in the days ahead, it is going to need a purge.

"Purge" is not a bad word. It simply means, according to the dictionary definition, "to rid of whatever is impure or undesirable; cleanse; purify."

Conservatives need to purge from their movement anything that is not conservative.

They shouldn't be attempting to broaden the definition of "conservative." They shouldn't be trying to build a bigger tent in the failed model of the Republican Party. They shouldn't be revising or lowering their standards. And they absolutely shouldn't be embracing enemies of the moral values that have defined the movement from the beginning.

…

That's why it's time for true conservatives to get their act together as America faces its greatest challenges ever in the next two years.

God cut Gideon's army up, slicing and dicing it until it represented only a tiny fraction of its numbers. God didn't want a big army to win victory. He wanted a miracle performed by a tiny army listening carefully and being in obedience to His commands.

God purged thousands from Gideon's army.

Conservatives need God's help, not GOProud's.

Purges can make an organization or a movement stronger.

Purges can help to refine, rather than redefine, what an ideology is all about.

Purges can sharpen and strengthen a movement – bringing it back to the core convictions and principles that made it successful.

And that's why the purge of the conservative movement should begin with David Keene and his administrative team at ACU.

Every time I write a post about something Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid as written (which seems to be happening quite frequently lately) I marvel at his consistency.  While most of the people we write about frequently occasionally write uninteresting or irrelevant things that don't really warrant any sort of coverage, Kincaid seems able to produce pieces so chock-full of craziness that they are impossible to ignore.

Case in point is his latest column, which is built around refuting this Politico article by Kenneth Vogel claiming that the conservative establishment is finally trying to distance itself from the "movement’s extremist elements."

Now, I don't buy Vogel's claims for a minute ... and neither does Kincaid, but for completely different reasons.  For instance, Vogel cites as evidence of his premise the fact that Ryan Sorba was jeered at CPAC for attacking GOProud from the stage, but Kincaid sees it differently, claiming that it was those who were booing Sorba who are extremists who don't represent the conservative movement:

What he ignores is the evidence that the "jeering" came mostly from non-conservatives, many of them libertarians, and that the "anti-gay activist," Ryan Sorba of Young Americans for Freedom, was rebutting a pro-gay speaker, a leader of a group who told me he wasn't a conservative in the first place.

To clear things up for Kenneth Vogel and others in the media, let us make it clear that a true conservative like Howard Phillips, who has been a leader in the conservative movement for several decades, understands that conservatism means traditional moral and religious values, a strong national defense, and economic freedom. There is nothing complicated or confusing about it. The homosexual movement, founded by a member of the Communist Party by the name of Harry Hay, simply doesn't qualify for admission, no matter how many libertarians in the CPAC audience may applaud for GOProud or jeer Ryan Sorba.

In order to purge the conservative movement of its extremists, CPAC will have to remove its own organizers who let them in.

The story ignores the real problem of how the "conservative establishment"-in the form of the CPAC organizers--picked actual and real extremists to co-sponsor their event. And those were the self-described "gay conservatives" who reject the social conservatism that has been an essential part of the conservative movement. The well-established and well-known Family Research Council pulled out of CPAC because CPAC organizer David Keene decided to allow GOProud, a relatively new organization that works for the election of "centrist" and liberal Republicans, into the event. But this mistake is overlooked by Vogel.

[Does anybody have any idea what Kincaid is talking about when he says that the Family Research Council pulled out of CPAC?  I know the Liberty University Law School did so, but I don't recall FRC ever following suit.]

Kincaid then goes on to dispute Vogel's claim that some conservatives were uneasy about the fact that the John Birch Society was allowed to co-host CPAC ... and does so by defending the John Birch Society:

Communism was and is a conspiracy. Without commenting on every charge made by the JBS or its leaders over the years, its central claim--that U.S. leaders are working with the communists and others to lay the groundwork for world government--cannot be dismissed out of hand. Objectively speaking, one has to admit that talk of global taxes and world government is frequently in the news and cannot be said to be the fantasies of the "black helicopter" crowd. Even the Pope has stated his belief in a "World Political Authority." His own Vatican newspaper published a favorable review of Marxist theory.

At this late date, no one can seriously doubt that a "New World Order" of some kind is coming into being. The real questions are to what extent it is being deliberately designed to subvert America's standing in the world and the American way of life, and what role President Obama is playing in it.

Critics of the JBS have to concede the organization has been on the right track about an emerging world government.

Kincaid finally wraps up his piece by defending the Birthers and attacking the "so-called 'conservatives'" who spoke to Vogel for his Politico piece, accusing them of giving the conservative movement a bad name.

I can hardly wait for Part II of Kincaid's piece, which he promises will focus on the conservative movement's relationship with "Alex Jones, Russian Television, and the Oath Keepers."

Earlier this year when it was announced that the conservative gay group GOProud would be serving as a co-sponsor of this year's CPAC conference, some Religious Right groups threatened to boycott though, in the end, only Liberty University Law School actually followed through.

Now that the event is underway, CNN is reporting everyone is playing nice:

GOProud has a booth at CPAC just two spaces away from the exhibition for the National Organization for Marriage, which wants the government to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

...

Chris Plante, who is running the booth for the National Organization for Marriage, said being two booths away from GOProud wasn't an issue.

As cameras rolled, he introduced himself to Barron.

"I hope we'll have more time to talk over the next four days. Maybe we can have a beer later," Plante said.

"We can have a beer summit later. It worked for Obama," Barron joked.

A meeting, yes. But don't expect a meeting of the minds.

"Gays and lesbians have the right to live as they choose, but they don't have the right to redefine marriage for the rest of us," Plante said.

But off camera, things look a little different, as NOM felt it necessary to send out a far less friendly statement to reporters on GOProud's participation in CPAC:

Many reporters, including Politico, have asked us how we feel about the fact GOProud is just a few booths over from us. We welcome everyone's right to participate in the democratic process, but we have a message for GOProud on marriage: If you try to elect pro-gay-marriage Republicans, we will Dede Scozzafava them. The majority of Americans, and the vast majority of Republicans, support marriage as the union of husband and wife, and NOM is here to make sure these voters and their voices are heard loud and clear.

Time's Jay Newton-Small also reports that GOPround had a run-in with representative of American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property which, just the other day, released a report defending Don't Ask, Don't Tell on the grounds that homosexuality is fundamentally evil and allowing gays to serve openly would destroy the military's honor.  Needless to say, TFP was not every welcoming of GOProud: 

These days, the group is particularly concerned with gays in the military. Beyond opposing the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the organization of lay Catholics would like to see all homosexuals banned from the military, according to a white and green pamphlet they were handing out. The case against gays in the military is laid out in a book, displayed prominently, called An American Knight: The Life of Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC, yours for just $14.95.

While I was flipping through the autobiography, a woman approached the booth. Catherine Sumner, it turned out, was part of GOProud, a group of openly gay Republicans and conservatives that for the first time is taking part in CPAC. “Is this your flyer?” Sumner demanded, waving the white and green pamphlet. Thus launched a debate about gays in the military that pretty much ended when the booth attendee told her that homosexuality is a sin and she's going to hell.

“It's insulting,” Sumner, 31, who edits a military magazine, said turning away. “Across the board the reaction to GOProud's presence here has been positive, but then you have guys like this. Even Dick Cheney came out and says he supports us. Conservatives have to be more inclusive, they have to be.” In fact, just one group, Liberty University, boycotted CPAC over the inclusion of GOProud, though the Catholic crowd weren't the only ones unnerved by their presence: one booth down from GOProud's set up in the fourth row, those manning the National Organization for Marriage, which works to ban gay marriage, kept casting nervous – and slightly envious – glances at the somewhat larger crowd surrounding GOProud's booth.

Considering that a who's who of right-wing leaders, including David Keene of the CPAC-founding American Conservative Union, joined TFP for a press conference yesterday supporting DADT at CPAC itself, its hard to imagine that GOProud or its supporters could have felt particularly welcome at the event:

UPDATE: Via Sarah Posner we see that GOProud's Jimmy LaSalvia is not at all impressed with NOM's tactics: 

UPDATE II: This video from Media Matters is absolutely remarkable: 

Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid has once again dedicated his latest colmun to not only defending the proposed legislation in Uganda that mandates life in prison and, in some cases, the death penalty for gays, but to attacking Sen. Tom Coburn for opposing the bill and for associating himself with gays: 

In a case of strange political bedfellows, conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has joined leftist comedian Al Franken, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, in sponsoring a bill denouncing Uganda's Christians for considering passage of legislation to outlaw certain unhealthy and immoral homosexual practices.

The original sponsor of the U.S. Senate bill (S. Res. 409) is Democratic Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, who supports the entire "gay rights" agenda, including forcing Christian-owned businesses to accept homosexual employees under the so-called Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Echoing the claims of liberals in the media, who have targeted Uganda for isolation and a denial of foreign aid for considering the legislation, Coburn has called it "an absurd proposal to execute gays" that somehow threatens progress against AIDS.

...

Coburn spokesman John Hart confirmed that the senator has also been working with a "gay" Republican group, GOProud, to defeat the Ugandan bill.

On the website of the group, which is co-sponsoring the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. next week, Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, declared, "We were thrilled to have had the opportunity to work with Dr. Coburn back in December when he forcefully spoke out against the proposed Ugandan law, and we are pleased that he continues to lead on this issue."

LaSalvia was previously director of programs and policy at the Log Cabin Republicans, another Republican homosexual group that seeks to water down the GOP's commitment to traditional values.

Conservative and Christian groups have denounced CPAC organizer David Keene of the American Conservative Union for accepting GOProud as a sponsor. Keene previously accepted CPAC sponsorship money from George Soros-funded groups such as the ACLU and the Drug Policy Alliance.

For the last few weeks, the militantly anti-gay activists at Liberty Counsel, led by Matt Barber, have been threatening to boycott the annual CPAC convention if organizers didn't force the gay conservative group GOProud to withdraw as a sponsor. 

Event organizers recently declared that they would not do so, so now Liberty University Law School has withdrawn its own sponsorship, though the affiliated Liberty Counsel will still participate:

Liberty University Law School has withdrawn as a co-sponsor of next month's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington because a Republican homosexual activist group is being allowed to co-sponsor the event.

Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Liberty Law School Dean Mat Staver had penned a letter to CPAC organizer David Keene last month, requesting that he disallow the homosexual group GOProud from co-sponsoring the conference. The letter was also signed by other evangelical Christian leaders, including Gary Bauer.

GOProud supports, among other things, same-sex marriage and repealing the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy.

Staver reports that he never received a formal response to his complaint, so Liberty University is dropping its co-sponsorship. Liberty Counsel, however, will still have a booth at CPAC.

"Obviously as an exhibitor or participant, you don't necessarily have to think that everyone agrees with you, and some people might even work against you," Staver notes. "But as a co-sponsor, even though not everybody would have the same mission, not everyone would agree with the same tactics, and some would actually focus on economics whereas others might focus on social issues and others might focus on national defense - the fact is they're all conservative in nature. You wouldn't expect, however, a co-sponsor to actively work to undermine another co-sponsor, and that is in fact what GOProud does."

• HuckPAC is undergoing a "restructuring" and its Vertical Politics Institute is no more.
• The ACU's David Keene participated in a conference call in which he disputed the recent Politico story as false and "absurd."
• He's not a Senator, but he'd like to be ... and if he were one, Charlie Crist says he'd vote against Sonia Sotomayor.
• If you've always wanted to meet Roy Moore, here is your chance.
• If you are concerned that Craig's List just isn't Christian enough, you can always switch to CHRISTools.com.
• Stephen Baldwin has filed for bankruptcy.
• Rep. Tim Ryan says he has been "booted" from the national advisory board of Democrats For Life of America for taking the position that use of contraception is needed as part of any plan to reduce unintended pregnancies.
• Finally, CBN covers the Christians United for Israel Conference:

Newt Gingrich has descended upon the Iowa caucuses again, promoting a “Platform of the American People” –and, incredibly, raising the specter of running for vice president:

The timing of his appearances a month before the Jan. 3 Iowa presidential caucuses is leading political observers to suspect he's angling to be on the short list of running-mates for former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee or whoever is the Republican nominee. …

The former House speaker who flirted with a Republican presidential nomination run earlier this year said in a C-SPAN interview on Sunday that he might accept being the presidential nominee's running mate if offered.

"Depending on the circumstances, I'd be honored to be considered and under some circumstances, I'd probably feel compelled to say 'yes,' " said Mr. Gingrich, who says he will work until this summer's presidential nominating conventions "to get both parties to adopt a unity platform on a handful of things they could enact in the first 90 days of 2009."

It was just two months ago that Gingrich’s incipient presidential run was mercifully laid to rest, but some on the Right are apparently holding out hope that the former House speaker will save them, perhaps fondly recalling the “Contract with America” that he put together shortly before the Republicans took control of the House in 1995 and that served as a right-wing rallying cry after the elections.

Of course, a lot has happened since 1995. Gingrich quickly established his lack of popularity—within two years, his favorability rating was at 15 percent. His skills as a political strategist were put to the test as he pursued the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the run up to the 1998 elections, which resulted in a devastating loss for Republicans and his stepping down from leadership. Many Americans no doubt remember the hypocrisy of Gingrich prosecuting Clinton for sexual indiscretion while he himself was having an affair.

Gingrich was a key figure in creating the era of highly-polarized politics, but today he is branding himself, ironically, as a seeker of common ground, launching a campaign earlier this year of platitudes (“Real change requires real change,” etc.). Now, the Right is looking to him as its “ideas man,” gushing over his “intellectual heft.” “Newt Gingrich is the intellectual cornerstone of our modern conservative movement," said the American Conservative Union’s William Lauderback at this year’s CPAC.

While such a reputation on the Right may be hard to believe, it may ultimately doom his vice-presidential aspirations; ACU’s David Keene warns that Gingrich’s “articulateness and willingness to speak out on virtually every issue” would put candidates at risk of being “upstag[ed]” by him. That would indeed be embarrassing.

In any event, we’re sure Gingrich is enjoying all the attention, and it brings to mind the words of longtime Gingrich ally Matt Towery after Gingrich announced he wouldn’t seek the presidency. "The question is, around Washington: Was it a scam?”