End Of The Brief Sojourn

Mr. Tyrrell's remarks delivered at The American Spectator's annual Robert L. Bartley Dinner in Washington, D.C. on November 9, 2010.

Well, I guess our Wilderness Years are over. They were very brief. I never even felt a chill. Conservatism's undertakers had hardly finished their tales of Conservative Crack-Up and Conservative Demise when we were on the comeback trail. I think it began January 20, 2009. Soon we were firing up our Hummers and heading home. I had hoped my years in the Wilderness would last a bit longer. Out there with the chiggers and the poison ivy, I had hoped to find the pulchritudinous Sarah Palin. I understand that she has a terrific recipe for sautéed elk. Or perhaps I could catch a member of the World Wildlife Federation torturing butterflies.

But now we have returned to civilization, and I do not know what to do with all that stuff I bought from the L.L. Bean catalogue back in that dratted year '08. Maybe I can give the stuff to Sam Tanenhaus, the goofball editor of the New York Times Book Review. If there be justice in this world, Tanenhaus will be consigned to the Wilderness for the rest of his life after writing that exceptionally imbecilic "The Death of Conservatism," first in the New Republic, which is understandable. Everything in the New Republic, at least on politics, is imbecilic. Then, as a book. That was a little over a year ago. A little over a year ago! The Death of Conservatism! If I ever write such a stupendously stupid book, burn it!

Tanenhaus's theme was anticipated shortly after the '08 elections by David Frum(p) and David Brooks. They are conservatism's Branch Davidians, who occasionally attempt suicide in the newspapers, only to be saved from oblivion by Liberals who find their columns somehow wonderful. Let me remind you all of what David Brooks said on November 11, 2008...