All Things in Moderation

If you’re interested in election politics, the full discussions with Michael Barone and Haley Barbour are worth listening to (starts around 5:30). If you just want to hear Rob Long (my favorite conservative) rail against the bankers, making the case that the folks who helped get us into this crisis should be broke and selling apples on the street, fast forward to the last 20 minutes (starts about 58:00), and listen to him go. The real populism (and punish the bankers rhetoric) starts at 1:02.

As a RINO, conservative-ish moderate, I tend to resent that the forums for conservative thought are dominated by (and, sometimes, I think, being squashed by some who may be rabble-rousing poseurs) Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and others. I like Rush Limbaugh, and though I rarely listen to his show these days, I listened regularly for 10 years, and I like the show. But I don’t think that style, which is about 80% bloviation (entertaining) and 20% substantial content, should not be the only thing that represents conservative thought in the public forum. I find talking heads shouting at each other on Fox even less appealing (and not reflective of the depth of any side of any argument).

That’s why I like Ricochet. I bet most folks on the left (not you fine people here, but elsewhere) would be a little surprised by Haley Barbour, or the kind of dialog that goes on between conservatives when they have a broader canvas than 5 minutes on Fox.

Or Jonah Goldberg. Common lampooned as an idiot or demon, even very liberal folks would have a hard time getting that vibe if all they had to go on was his appearance on episode 87 of Ricochet: Looking for a Hero.

I don’t have any specific call-outs for that episode, but there’s a lot of discussion of the 2012 race, with a lot of hard-headed, no-nonsense analysis from the conservative side.

The title makes me think of Frou-Frou’s cover of Bonnie Tyler’s I Need a Hero. Love that cover. But I love covers, generally.