Glenn Beck: A Right-Wing Bill Ayers?

This is the gist of Bruce Bartlett's e-mail to David Frum:

I've been thinking lately that conservative elites are reaching a moment similar to that which confronted liberal elites in the late 1960s. At first they saw the rise of SDS, the Black Panthers and other extreme left groups as cannon fodder that could be used to achieve liberal goals. . . . But one day liberals realized that the extremists couldn't be controlled and threatened anarchy. . . . I think conservative elites today see the teabaggers, birthers and other kooks as cannon fodder for larger conservative goals the same way liberals originally saw student radicals in the 1960s. I think one day soon something like the Harvard library burning is going to make conservatives realize that these people present more of a threat than a tool for advancing conservative goals. . . . [Y]ou can’t pour fuel on the fires of peoples' emotions the way Glenn Beck does on a daily basis without getting an explosion at some point.

Hey, Bruce, I love hyperbolic analogies as much as the next guy, but . . . nah. Bill Ayers and Mark Rudd were never TV stars. They were not leaders of a populist mass movement.

The New Left was almost entirely a rebellion by spoiled brats, the impudent offspring of the elite. The anti-war radicals weren't even a majority of college students in the '60s, much less a majority of the entire Baby Boom generation.

Taxpayers raising hell at congressional town halls are not the same as 19-year-old punks burning draft cards. The Tea Party movement is not the new "Mobe" and Birthers aren't the Merry Pranksters.

In general, the Left is not the Right. It is therefore an error when the Left supposes that Howard Dean was their Goldwater and Obama is their Reagan, just as it is an error to confuse Sean Hannity's "Freedom Concerts" with Woodstock. At some point, the fundamental differences overwhelm the superficial similarities.

But thanks for giving conservative bloggers an excuse to link The New Majority. (C'mon, Dave, denounce me, buddy. "Unserious" is a good place to start. And inarguably accurate, too. But a full-out flame-war would be good for both of us.)