WSJ’s Norman Podhertz demonstrates why it’s futile to attempt bipartisanship with Republicans

By giving Hitler 98% of what he wanted, Chamberlain saved the United Kingdom from what would have been a very costly war with Germany.

I’ve been pointing out in recent days that maybe those on the right are really just liberals at heart that have been transformed into conservatives by fear and hate.  However, I want to make an important distinction – this means that we should try to win them over to our side, rather than negotiate with them, as Obama has been trying to do.  The fact that they are liberals at heart does not mean we can trust them or that they are capable of working towards bipartisan objectives.

A recent article by conservative Norman Podhoretz demonstrates why.  Mr. P.  recognizes the liberal criticism directed at Obama’s Neville Chamberlain-style appeasement of the far right in Congress, and the fears that Obama has become far more conservative since his election.  What’s Norm’s take on it?  Does he thank the president for the massive concessions his party has received?  Does he say “given how much Obama has done for us and how crazy the Republican candidates look, maybe I’ll vote for him in 2012”?  No.  The subheading says it all:

“He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president.”

As proof of this claim, he brings up the same old bullshit about Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, the same old word-twisting of selected Obama quotations, to claim that Obama really is some far left liberal wet dream who wants to turn the United States into Soviet Russia.  The same fear, the same hate, that was used against Obama in 2008.

But why aren’t conservatives convinced by Obama’s Great Republican Giveaway in the Debt Crisis?  Podhertz explains it away as:

“a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. “

Wow.  That really illustrates the kind of suspension of disbelief that conservatives are capable of.  Instead of convincing the right that he’s reaching across the aisle, Obama’s relentless concessions to the right have only convinced them even more of the Secret Obama Plot to Destroy America, which is apparently still waiting for the right opportunity after two and a half years in office.   If Obama tomorrow decided to ban abortion, eliminate the income tax, and bomb France, the right would see it as a ploy to hide Obama’s secret plot to turn us into the Socialist Republic of Blackistan.  And if there’s any doubt that Podhoretz represents your typical Republican, check out the comments (note: the comments update so they may have changed since I’ve seen them, but I’d bet they’re substantively the same far right Obama=Satan bullshit as I’m seeing).

There’s clearly no appeasing them.   So why try?