David Weigel opens his article on attending the National Review post-election "what went wrong?" summit with this:
Early on Friday evening hundreds of conservatives pack the room, stepping in and out of line depending on whether they’re thirsty or whether they’d rather talk to one of the available icons—Mark Steyn! Jonah Goldberg! Rich Lowry!
I get stuck between Steyn, a ring of his fans, and a bar, where I meet an Orlando dermatologist named Darrin. He’d volunteered for Mitt Romney’s campaign, “making calls from my office” when he wasn’t working or raising his kids, and he wasn’t surprised when Romney lost, because he doesn’t put any graft past Barack Obama. “I’m worried about a dictatorship,” he says—really, we have been talking for maybe three minutes before he lays this on me. “I mean, it happened in history. History repeats. Why couldn’t it? How about all the Muslim Brotherhood czars? He’s got like eight different guys in the administration who are members of the Muslim Brotherhood.”
When I start to sound skeptical, Darrin pulls out his iPhone and forwards me an infographic. It’s titled “Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrates Obama Administration,” and it shows six Muslims who work in the administration and “enjoy strong influence.” Another way of putting it: Six mid- and low-level staffers in the administration have, in the past, appeared on panels staged by frightening-sounding organizations. But the evidence worries Darrin. “If I have to go to a freakin’ island to save my kids,” he says. “I’ll do it. I’ll leave the country.”But, to be fair, over at MediaMatters, Eric Boehlert notes that some voices at the conference did acknowledge that the Fox News led perpetual outrage machine of the last 3 years had been counterproductive.
Baby steps back towards reality, I guess.
Update: on the third hand, the Salon commentary on the summit thinks that too many Republicans still think the problem was just with the messaging, not their ideas.
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