APPLAUSE, APPLAUSE – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  One of the most honorable things you can do in politics is to keep your movement, or party, honest and decent.  It can be painful, as you sometimes have to oppose old friends and supporters.  But it's necessary.

William F. Buckley Jr. worked tirelessly to separate fringe elements from the new conservative movement.  Ronald Reagan carefully distanced himself from nutbags.  Harry Truman lost votes by making the limits clear to both segregationists and the leftist lunatics.

Now, that time has come again among conservatives, as The Politico reports:

After months of struggling to harness the energy of newly engaged tea party activists, the conservative establishment - with critical midterm congressional elections on the horizon - is taking aim for the first time at the movement’s extremist elements.

The move has been cast by some conservatives as a modern version of the marginalization of the far-right anti-communist John Birch Society during the reorganization of the conservative movement spearheaded in the 1960s and 1970s by William F. Buckley Jr.

“A similar effort will be required today of conservative political and intellectual leaders,” former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote in his column in the Washington Post . “It will not be easy. Sometimes it takes courage to stand before a large crowd and proclaim that two plus two equals four.”

But for Gerson and other conservatives, this is not just an intellectual exercise. They have a very specific political goal – to deprive Democrats and their allies a potentially potent weapon to use against the GOP in November.

“I don’t believe we should be giving (extremists) a platform or empowering them to do anything based off their conspiracy theories,” said Ned Ryun, president of American Majority, “because they give the left ammunition to try to define the tea party movement as crazy and fringy.”

Absolutely correct.  A political movement must be policed from the inside.  It can be a broad tent, but it cannot be an infinite tent.  One of the reasons the conservative revival worked so well, and launched Ronald Reagan into the White House, is that conservatives were far more vigilant than liberals about keeping the nuts out.  Compare Buckley's purge of the John Birchers with the Democratic Party's acceptance of all kinds of fringe leftists, starting in the 1960s. 

And, by the way, one reason for the revulsion of many toward parts of the mainstream media is the media's inability to separate true, traditional liberals from hard leftists.  Old Marxists are described as "progressives" or "social activists."

The attempt “to clean up our own house,” as Erick Erickson, founder of the influential conservative blog RedState, puts it, is necessary “ because traditional press outlets have decided to spotlight these fringe elements that get attracted to the movement, and focus on them as if they’re a large part of this tea party movement. And I don’t think they are.”

Go to it, guys.  Don't give ammo to the opposition.  Sometimes you have to show someone the door to keep the room clean.

February 27, 2010