Illegitimate 'compassion'

Good. A necessary message with an ugly word is finally getting out.

For years conservatives have railed against “compassionate conservatism,” associating it with elephantine government in sheep’s clothing. But Kimberly Strassel got it right at the end of last week in a Wall Street Journal column, “The Compassion of John Kasich.” She wrote that Kasich “is fresh to many voters, but his message isn’t. This is ‘compassionate conservatism’—or at least a bastardized version of it.”

Good. The synonyms of illegitimacy are many, and they could well be applied to “compassionate conservatism” as it became known through Bush administration spending: Counterfeit. Fake. Sham. Adulterated. False. Fraud. Hoaxer. Imposter. Pretender. And my favorite, mountebank.

But the genuine, legitimate, and true “compassionate conservatism” that George W. Bush embraced as Texas governor held that the poverty-industrial complex should be swatted, not patted and fed. Federally funded poverty fighting enabled the poor to stay poor but did little or nothing to help them push their way out of poverty. Compassionate conservatism was all about clearing away governmental spider webs and getting more resources to neighborhood groups that could offer challenging, personal, and spiritual help.

Strassel rightly writes that Kasich “is a happy-in-life-and-God conservative, and it makes him seem the optimist. Which is bizarre, because underpinning the entire compassionate-conservative movement is a glum surrender to the entitlement state. The left has won; all that remains is to argue that conservative big-government is better managed than liberal big-government. Note Mr. Kasich’s celebration that his poverty program is less bad than other poverty programs. Yay. It’s not really a winning message.”

It’s not winning. It’s not helpful to the poor. It’s not faithful to the Bible, as I wrote in February. And it’s too bad because, as Strassel wrote, Kasich “has a mostly impressive conservative record. He has political skills. He has energy and optimism. Imagine if he were to apply all that to a Kemp-Ryan approach, to spreading the gospel of smaller government, in the name of helping those most vulnerable. He’d be a force to reckon with.”

Sadly, as George W. Bush focused on Iraq rather than domestic wrecks, “compassionate conservatism” became a fat drunk. I still hope it will become trim once again and sober, ready to battle.