How we carry ourselves is as essential a component as the principles we espouse

I'm rather big on distilling what it means to be a conservative to a level as close to irreducible essence as possible. Anything short of that mires one in policy weeds or one-note-johnny obsessions that blind one to forces that we absolutely must fight either for or against. To be preoccupied with, say, immigration, abortion, jihad or environmental regulation solely, at the expense of the others, is to willfully blind oneself to the sum total of the mortal threat to our civilization. All such concerns must be held in balance, or coherence is lost.

I've pretty much settled on what are generally agreed to be the three pillars of real conservatism: free-market economics, an understanding of why Western civilization has been a unique blessing to humankind, and a foreign policy based on what history tells us about human nature. I've scrutinized this bullet-point list - continue to do so - for leaks that might ultimately sink it. So far, I haven't found any. These three pillars, it seems to me, cover anybody's pet concerns or points of emphasis, from traditional marriage to standing up to Russia to a flat tax to a strictly enforced border.

Something nags at me lately, however. It's beginning to strike me that one can champion even such a comprehensive-yet-distilled manifesto and still be - well, a jerk. An unlikeable human being. A weirdo.

So let's consider that maybe there's another level to conservatism, a level on which we're talking about disposition, about the way one comports oneself. One ought to have given a great deal of thought to what it means to serve as an example of cultivation, of intellect driven by earned wisdom, of a maturity that is attractive precisely due to its hard-won humor and big-picture bias.

This is why, after years of giving Ann Coulter the benefit of the doubt, even after the circumstances of her dismissal from National Review due to her column in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, her use of the "faggot" term in a CPAC speech, and various outrages of similar degree, I'm inclined to see Scott Johnson's viewpoint in a post he's published today at Power Line:

Ann Coulter had an idiosyncratic reaction to the prime time GOP candidates’ debate at the Reagan Presidential Library this past Wendesday. Israel came up too frequently to suit her taste. She somehow found it fitting and appropriate to tweet the comment below. Coulter has stood by her comment, as in this Hollywood Reporter story.

I’m wondering if Ann’s usual acuity hasn’t been dulled. Here is how she characterizes those who have taken offense to her tweet in her Hollywood Reporter interview: “The hypocrites who are mad at me are the ones who support anti-Israel college professors, who refuse to condemn Islamic barbarism, who supported the overthrow of Mubarak for the Muslim Brotherhood, who spread the deadly libel that Jews in America are only successful because of ‘white privilege.'”

I’m sure the description fits some of those who have taken note, but I’m a former fan who identifies with none of the views she attributes to her critics, and my view is that she can go to hell. 

Then there's the case of Glenn Beck, whose weird bounce from a public expression of vitriol to the Sarah and Todd Palin, basically saying they became dead to him years ago, to an even more public orgy of self-flagellation in which he wondered if he perhaps ought not to retreat from life as a public figure until he can learn to be a better role model to his kids.

Like Coulter, he has a track record of weirdo behavior: crying on his television shows, writing novels with grandiose aspirations that amount to pretty much nothing, holding huge rallies for various causes that fail to trigger follow-up momentum, and ginning up sensation over personal health matters for reasons that don't seem to extend beyond an attempt to boost ratings.

Think about the giants of our movement, starting with the first two who occur everybody: William Buckley and Ronald Reagan. These were distinguished men, men who knew when and how to use a quip to illustrate a point, who knew how to give a toast or make a speech that paid genuine tribute to giant human beings, men who were sufficiently judicious and in charge of their emotions that when they were mad you knew to pay attention.

Are there figures of such refined temperament among us today? Are there any running for US president?

Can we insist on spokespeople for our core set of principles who approximate the kind of human we claim that those principles produce?

We'd better, if there is going to be any credibility to the claim that ours is the grown-up vision for this troubled species.