Hovde

For those of us who (attempt to) follow Oregon news and politics, OregonLive, the on-line version of the Portland Oregonian, is indispensible. While I subscribe to a number of Oregon newspapers free in RSS form, OregonLive seems to hit the stories I need to know about most consistently. And as a human, I can't help but be interested in what other people think.

Hence opinion and editorial columns.

Back at the beginning of November, David Reinhard, the paper's conservative "columnist" submitted his final column. If you wanted to know what Reinhard's column was going to be about at any given moment, you just needed to check on what Rush Limburger had been saying for the last couple of days. DR's column would invariably be a cut, hack, and paste job of far right wingnuttia talking points. I don't miss him.

Elizabeth Hovde took over in early January; the reaction of various NW liberal bloggers was less than enthusiastic. For example, Dean Wormer made a pretty strong case that this was more of the same Kool-aid. I had hoped that she might show some signs of neural activity, but those hopes were dashed quickly.

But. But.

As I've said before, I feel the principles of conservatism have a lot to offer. I disagree with some of the starting positions, and many of the conclusions, but the principles should not be discounted. Modern Republicanism has completely shed any concern with conservative principles, and is focussed entirely on getting and maintaining power. Therefore the business of keeping everyone in line, singing the same tune, is of utmost importance. This is Rush's role: the central conductor of the noise machine.

And when Hovde writes a little fluff piece that concludes, "President Bush. That's a funny name, Mama," you have to wonder if, as she tried to represent herself in her first column, she isn't willing to bring a little dissonance into the machine. Her piece today takes a position that I more or less agree with. I think she came to her conclusion for the wrong reasons; the importance of homelessness is not primarily that it's bad for business. That may be a valid concern, but she seems to think it's central. Still, her conclusion is not what I suspect Rush or Lou Dobbs would conclude. I think she deserves a fair read. I think she may actually be trying to drop the Kool aid and find the apple juice. Not really sayin', just conjecturin'.