Some conservative commentators defiant, others glum

WASHINGTON — Conservative commentators were bloodied but unbowed Wednesday.

After a day in which Republicans lost their grip on the House and before Democrats were declared winners of the Senate, too, some of the right's most prominent voices found little cause for discouragement.

"Democrats, in my mind, don't have a mandate because they stood for nothing," radio host Laura Ingraham told her listeners Wednesday.

"Republicans lost last night, but conservatism did not," Rush Limbaugh said on the 600 stations that carry his program. "The Democrats beat something last night with nothing. They advanced no agenda, other than their usual anti-war position."

Two distinct camps quickly emerged among the columnists, talkers and bloggers who spent much of the past six years defending the administration. One carried an air of defiance, the other a mood of resignation that what President Bush on Wednesday called an electoral "thumping" was perhaps deserved.

"People are obviously depressed, but there's also been a sense among conservatives for a long time that Republicans deserved to be taken to the woodshed, and perhaps this will be cathartic," said Rich Lowry, editor of National Review. Democrats "had the virtue of not being the Republicans and benefiting from an unpopular war and not having high-profile corruption issues hung around their necks, but they also made themselves acceptable to voters."

Moments after the interview, as the president announced he was replacing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Lowry wrote on his magazine's Web site that "a lot of Republicans are probably yelling right now, 'Why didn't you do it BEFORE the election?' Of course, he couldn't have done it right before the election, but a few months ago it might have been a step toward giving the public the fresh look/approach it wanted with regard to Iraq."

Ingraham said after her show that she is "very confused. Wasn't it just last week that the president said Rumsfeld was doing an 'excellent' job? And hasn't the president consistently said that his war policy is driven by what is happening on the ground in Iraq — not politics or polls?

"Six months ago the White House could have replaced Rumsfeld, tying the decision to lack of adequate progress in the war — but doing it the day after the election looks weak and defensive, and a move aimed at placating Speaker-to-be [Nancy] Pelosi."

Beyond the Pentagon and politics, there was simply the trauma, known to every high-school athlete, of losing the big game. Commentator Sean Hannity sounded like a therapist as he addressed his followers Wednesday: "I know a lot of you are sad. I know a lot of you are bummed. I know a lot of you are depressed. ... I'll give you 24 hours, and then I'm going to tell you to get over it. Don't let yourself wallow in what has happened here."

Brian Maloney struck an equally upbeat note on his Radio Equalizer blog: "Unlike Democrats after their 2004 election debacle, it doesn't seem likely that many conservatives will threaten to move to Canada, spend months in therapy or engage in angry, unhinged public meltdowns. Welcome to the No-Sulk Zone!"

Some pontificators weren't in mourning for their formerly favorite political party.

"The voters gave the Republicans a well-earned kick in the gut," Atlanta radio host Neal Boortz wrote on his blog, adding that the GOP "bore little resemblance to the Republican majority that rode to power 12 years ago. In 1994 we were promised less government. Over the next 12 years the Republicans more than doubled the size of the government. ... We were promised fiscal responsibility. We got a bridge to nowhere in Alaska."

Liberals are accustomed to dealing with big political defeats, having received plenty of practice in 2000, 2002 and 2004 as Democrats were relegated to minority status. Left-wing blogs have flourished, and liberal radio programs have gotten a foothold. Conservative pundits, who have been riding high for so long, now will be getting some practice.

After months of arguing that a Democratic victory would hand over the House to such scary figures as John Conyers, Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel, some conservatives now say the winners are not just a collection of loony libs.

Attorney Scott Johnson, who writes for the popular Power Line blog, said from Minneapolis that he is "disappointed" in the voting but takes solace in the fact that "a number of conservative Democrats were elected in the House and Senate. I don't know how that plays with the anti-war, McGovernite thrust of the critique of administration foreign policy."

In certain conservative quarters, there was little effort to dispel the aura of gloom. Blogger Dean Barnett acknowledged online: "We made a case to the American people. They didn't buy it because they thought it was a weak case. And you know what? They were right. In the closing weeks of the campaign season, I felt like I was a lawyer who had a bad client while writing this blog."

But Limbaugh said he felt liberated at no longer having to "carry the water" of Republicans who don't deserve it.

For some, though, there may be a financial silver lining. Lowry noted that National Review's circulation tends to jump when the other side is in power, surging to 280,000 during the Clinton administration, only to decline to 150,000 during the Bush reign. He now expects another bump as conservatives become agitated about the Democrats' new clout in Congress.

"That doesn't mean I was rooting for Nancy Pelosi to be speaker," he insisted.