What Kind of Conservative, Should We Care For Rupert Murdoch?

While I was perusing a number of blogs this morning I saw in  Newsbusters, An article by Matthew Sheppard on Dave Folkenflik interview with Rupert Murdoch. He expresses his inabilty to understand why so many American Conservatives don't know about Murdoch or care about him. Perhaps the author doesn't understand that many conservative don't particularly regard him as a conservative, Fox has after all done everything it could to be the raunchiest network on Network tv and is always trying to push the boundary of decency.

Murdoch's conservatism is not everyone's. Murdoch in fact reflects the confusion regarding what it means to be a conservative in America, and how it relates to the Republican Party, which has for nearly 6 decades been seen to be the principle vehicle of Conservatism.

First the conservative movement has, since the cold war been a coalition of several different streams of  thought. Anti-Communism was the glue which for so long held the coalition together. The Conservative movement has long consisted of

• Social Conservatives, whose primary concern is the moral and cultural decline of the west. 
• The purely economic conservatives whose principal concern is the maintenance of free markets and low taxes. 
• The libertarians, whose primary focus is the limiting of any government power and what Robert Bork once referred to as "Radical individualism.

Of course many, conservatives have held some are all of these in common. Many , most I should think, Social conservatives are believers in the free market and limited Gov. Some libertarians agree with some of the social conservative agenda. But virtually all have a primary focus. But the one thing that held them together was a hatred of Communism.\

Before the 1960s, both of the political parties contained both Conservatives and liberals and anti- communists. The Democrats had ultra conservatives like Pat McCarran and the Republicans had the Rockefeller's and the Remnants the old Progressive wing of the party. By 1972, the left had completed it domination of the Democratic party by its left wing, largely rooting out their conservatives, leaving for the most part only leftist and extreme leftist. (some conservatives remained for a while, The late Larry McDonald Rep. from Georgia was until his death in the KAL-007 tragedy the head of the John Birch Society.)

The Republicans on the other hand have never gone through such a transition. Largely the leadership of the Party is composed of economic "conservatives", a wealthy elite, while the rank of the file base of the party represents a combine of the various Conservatism's. As long a the Communist threat existed the groups were content to remain together. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the various factions are becoming increasingly unwilling to share the yoke. Like the Whig party of the 1800's the current Republican Party has no soul. Sadly those conservatism extends beyond making the Billionaires, Trillionaires dont currently have a party to turn to. My guess is that the Libertarians don't

find the party's current "Big Government Conservatism",
any more satisfying.