Reeds In The Wind

One of the recurring themes of this blog has been the way in which many self-described "conservatives" have been exposed as little more than opportunistic hypocrites during the past few years. It's both fascinating and a bit sad, because a decade ago I considered some of these people or their employers in the media to be standard-bearers of clear thinking when the premium on that was dear.

I don't know much about Mark Levin other than he's an attorney who contributes frequently to National Review. I also recall that during the Clinton administration he was a vocal critic of both the president and Janet Reno, particularly on the subject of intrusive government. One of Levin's pet issues was the shootout at Ruby Ridge in 1992 when the FBI and U.S. Marshals laid siege to Randy Weaver and his family at a remote mountain cabin. Here are some excerpts from a longer piece Levin wrote in National Review in 1995 defending Weaver (my bolds):

The Weavers' ordeal began in 1989 when a confidential informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms persuaded Randy Weaver to sell him two sawed-off shotguns, thereby entrapping him. The ATF informant received $5,000 for his help. There is no indication that, prior to meeting the informant, Weaver had ever sold illegal weapons to anyone.

The ATF then informed Weaver the United States attorney was considering bringing criminal charges against him for the gun sales, but might go easier on him if he turned informer against the Aryan Nations. Weaver refused, saying he would not become a "snitch."

Weaver was then charged. But why had the ATF entrapped him in the first place? His views were and are repugnant to most Americans, but he was not involved in unlawful activities.

There's more:

For an astonishing 18 months, marshals mounted a surveillance operation on the Weavers -- including 16-year-old Sara, 14-year-old Sammy, 10-year-old Rachel, and, later, 10-month-old Elisheba -- and their live-in family friend, Kevin Harris.

And this:

Larry Potts, head of the FBI's criminal division, ordered the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team, commanded by Richard Rogers, to go to Ruby Ridge. Rogers, apparently concerned about protecting his men, drafted new rules of engagement, which departed dramatically from existing rules.

The kicker: as Levin himself notes in the article, he wrote the above in response to testimony on Ruby Ridge heard by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on---you guessed it---Terrorism.

Levin was also a strident defender of civil liberties during the assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, and---if memory serves---during the seizure of Elian Gonzalez and his forced return to Cuba. (Others on the Right were as well; here's an Ann Coulter piece in which she sympathetically calls David Koresh and the Branch Davidians "harmless American citizens" and Elian Gonzalez "a small Cuban boy.") Both incidents, of course, occurred during Bill Clinton's presidency.

These days, Levin's singing a different tune. He's been an apologist for one abuse of power after another, from torture to NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. This week, he defended John Yoo in this post at NRO, concluding with:

John Yoo deserves a medal. He's a patriot.

During the 1990's, Levin carried the torch for Randy Weaver---criticizing government surveillance of a man Levin concedes had attended Aryan Nation meetings and trafficked in illegal weapons, decrying the FBI's secret drafting of new rules designed to get around existing rules of engagement, and advocating strong civilian oversight of the agencies of government power in order to safeguard civil liberties. And Levin did that in the context of Senate hearings on terrorism, arguing essentially that we can't allow terrorists to win by making us lose ourselves and our ideals to hysteria. Today, Levin is president of the John Yoo Fan Club and a tireless advocate of the chief executive's power to create new rules for conduct when existing ones are inconvenient. Quite a turnabout, eh? Can there be any doubt that if Ruby Ridge or Waco happened today, Mark Levin would be joined by others on the Titular Right in calling Randy Weaver and David Koresh "terrorists" against whom the full power of the U.S. government should be brought to bear?

If the Democrats (particularly if it's Hillary Clinton) retake the White House in 2008, the sound you'll hear will be readers cackling as Levin and the other windblown reeds---driven by the exigencies of opportunism and reader subscriptions---come full circle and once again hoist the flag of outrage against intrusive government and abuse of power.

And so it goes.