Howard (“Howie”) Phillips was unique.
The year was 1987 and the Reagan administration had announced the INF
Treaty to limit short-range nukes. Many conservatives were opposed. I
elected to host a press conference to make that point publicly.
The night before, we met privately. As ringleader, I issued a
directive: no attacks on Ronald Reagan. Our beef was with the treaty,
not with the Gipper. My co-conspirators agreed, unanimously. But while
we were meeting President Reagan was sitting down for an interview with
Tom Brokaw and said about conservative opposition, “Some conservatives
just believe in the inevitability of nuclear war.”
Bad choice of words. The next morning conservatives were furious, none
moreso than the late Senator Malcolm Wallop, who broadsided the
president from the Senate floor. As we assembled for our press
conference I withdrew my edict. Anyone who felt the need to respond to
Reagan, had the right to do so. It was decided that three of us would
speak on behalf of everyone.
Now here’s a little bit of inside baseball about press conferences. It
matters not a whit what you say. Reporters cover events, but transcribe
only soundbites. For speakers vying for coverage, the rule is pretty
solid as well: He with the best one-liner wins.
I led off, and my statement contained that sentence which I delivered
with brio and knew was sure to stick. Very satisfied, I sat down, but
not before introducing Richard Viguerie, the patriarch of the “New
Right” re-birth of the conservative movement. He didn’t have a
statement, just a little card containing one sentence. His
attention-grabber line was twice as good as mine, which he delivered
with double the brio. Advantage: Viguerie.
We turned the podium over to Howie Phillips. Within a minute he’d
delivered his soundbite. Viguerie and I, seated at the head table on
either side of the lectern, leaned our chairs back, looked at each
other, and silently nodded. We knew Phillips had scored the knockout.
“Reagan is a useful idiot.”
All
hell broke loose. All day we were peppered with questions from the
press after being denounced by the White House. That evening, Viguerie
and I were guests on CNN and anchorman Bernie Shaw eviscerated us. That
was it. We asked Phillips to join us for breakfast the following
morning.
Serious and worried, we told our friend it was time for serious damage control. The options:
One, apologize. Whatever your intent, this is perceived as a personal
insult and no one, most especially Ronald Reagan, should be insulted by
us.
Two, clarify. We know what you meant. Lenin called Soviet sympathizers
overseas “useful idiots.” What you meant was that Reagan unwittingly is
doing the bidding of the Soviets now. Call it a bad choice of words.
Re-phrase your point.
We should have known better. Phillips met our worried disposition with a
beaming, crooked smile and twinkling eyes. “Or three, stand by my
words!” he said before erupting in laughter.
It doesn’t matter what you think of his answer (obviously I didn’t
agree). It was a quintessential Howie Phillips moment: Confident, cocky,
care-free.
It
is a sad commentary on conservatives’ sense of their own history that
many may not know the name Howard Phillips. He, along with Viguerie,
Terry Dolan (another name unknown to most in the movement), Paul Weyrich
and Ed Feulner, was the founder of the New Right juggernaut that
delivered Reagan. As a political force, they created the conservative
movement that exists today.
The goal of the New Right wasn’t merely to fight the establishment. It
was to create a conservative counter-establishment. As opposed to
today’s movement, they didn’t play defense, fidgeting and dithering
about Sen. Harry Reid, tax increases, and Iran. They relished offense
and weren’t satisfied until Sen. George McGovern was again a private
citizen, taxes were slashed, and the Soviet Union destroyed.
They were happy warriors. As opposed to so many of today’s
conservatives, worried that American exceptionalism cannot be redeemed,
and so depressed by the prospect, those conservatives saw unlimited
possibilities. Whittaker Chambers famously had told Phillips’ generation
that in abandoning communism, he was leaving the winning side for the
losing cause. Some conservatives accepted that depressing outlook as
inevitable. The New Right rejected that thinking entirely – and did so
with gusto, what good men do when they are committed to principle and
unafraid.
Most amazing, this merry band of brothers was just that – a band. By
today’s standards, the New Right was never really a movement. It was a
dozen or so leaders, with a dozen or so organizations, with maybe two
dozen dollars to spend. What should have been a blip became a seismic
explosion. They were revolutionaries, the political arm of the movement
that ushered in the Reagan era.
Most conservatives wouldn’t be here but for men like Howard Phillips. They are his legacy. RIP.