April, 2004

LENGTH: 5638 words

HEADLINE: Hard Right

BYLINE: Cohen, Mark Francis; Contributing editor Mark Francis Cohen wrote about Washington's liberal establishment in the March issue.

HIGHLIGHT:

Washington's Conservative Establishment Is Very Organized--and It's Playing for Keeps

BODY:

IF YOU WENT LOOKING FOR A LIBERAL'S WORST NIGHTMARE, YOU might wind up on the second floor of a DC office building a little before 10 on a Wednesday morning. Inside a conference room whose gray mini blinds are drawn closed, more than 100 gladiators have assembled for a weekly get-together that is part information exchange and part strategy session. The invitation-only crowd includes leaders of religious groups, lobbyists for conservative causes, members of the Bush administration, elected officials, and assorted other activists. They make up the DNA of the conservative movement. $ In his office down the hall, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and the man who devised and runs the meeting, says: "It's called the Wednesday Meeting. It's not called the Grover Meeting. It's not called the ATR Meeting. This is the movement's meeting, and it can't be associated with any one person or organization."

A bearded man with square-framed glasses, Norquist is pale--the kind of colorless color that indicates he spends his days indoors. He gets out of the office mainly to hotel press conferences and out-of-town meetings. Were it not for the fact that he is one of the most influential people in Washington, he could be a ghost.

He slides into the noisy room, picks up a coffee at the coffee-and-bagels station, and heads for the table at the center. On the way he passes a younger attendee wearing a pin that reads DEAN PEOPLE SUCK.

Norquist sits down and clips a microphone onto his gold-colored tie. This is an hour of no-nonsense business, and Norquist has an agenda. He begins by unceremoniously calling on a Senate staff member--"If we can start with the Senate," Norquist chirps, his voice ricocheting from the speakers--to update the group on that body's doings.

When the Senate staffer is finished outlining the GOP leadership's plans, Norquist asks, "Questions? Questions on Senate stuff?" As people raise their hands, those recognized to speak have a hand-held microphone thrust Oprah-style at them by a quick-moving woman from Norquist's staff. Some of the questioners ask about the number of votes the Republicans have on an issue; others ask about legislation in the pipeline.

As the meeting proceeds, paper gets passed around--charts, schedules, newsletters, and brochures on upcoming events, rallies, and campaigns. Many of the documents are packed with talking points that attendees can use to mow down anyone challenging the conservative cause.

The tensest moment comes when a senior administration official tries to make a case for encouraging low-income people to get married as part of the reauthorization of welfare reform in Congress. When he implores the group to push for tethering benefits to marriage, people challenge the wisdom of imposing federal mandates on state governments. One person asks if tacking on marriage restrictions could doom the reauthorization of welfare reform, which imposes work rules. The official says loudly, "If you want to shrink the role of government, you've got to promote marriage and end out-of-wedlock births. You don't want to go for straight reauthorization."

The lightest moment comes at the end of the session when a lobbyist in a pinstriped suit presents some TV ads, which are beamed from a built-in projector onto a big drop-down screen. The ads tell California voters to oppose a ballot measure the lobbyist says will raise taxes. At one point, an actor on the screen says, "Would you ever hand someone a blank check? Well, that's what Proposition 56 does. Worst of all, it hands a blank check to the legislature."

With that, the group bursts into laughter. To the people here, the idea of giving the Democrat-controlled legislature carte blanche to spend is as good as a joke gets.

From Capitol Hill to K Street--and Beyond

TODAY'S CONSERVATIVE LEADERS ARE A NEW BREED. THEY are organized, disciplined, and ambitious. They have ironclad, big-picture ideas of what government should do, what the culture should be like, and how geopolitics should work. Because they control the White House and Congress, conservatives have a ruling mentality. Unlike liberals, who are out of power and have no ballast, conservatives are focused on more than just electoral victories--they are set on long-term goals. Whatever the actual ideological divide in the nation, they act as though they have a mandate. And they are out to change things forever.

Conservative power-holders are, like Grover Norquist, both professionals and missionaries. They don't spend much time in drawing rooms and cocktail receptions. They spend time strategizing and mobilizing. Where the conservative hierarchy once was dominated by socialites and graduates of elite schools, today's conservative ruling class is mostly ideological hardliners.

The conservative establishment is serious about results, and its members can be calculating, even ruthless. Norquist talked about the strategy in a column for the American Spectator magazine: "[Conservatives] understand that George W. Bush was right to begin his administration smothering the Democrats with bear hugs while activists delivered body blows to vulnerable Democrat senators. Praising dead Democrats and hugging live ones is not treason when the goal is legislative victories."

The late political guru Lee Atwater wrote the tactical playbook GOP operatives use today. The tactics include defining an opponent early and devastating him with negative advertising while your candidate remains above the fray. Atwater is credited with getting George H.W. Bush elected in 1988. Also schooled by Atwater at one time or another were President George W. Bush, strategist Karl Rove, and political consultant Mary Matalin.

Congressman Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, delivers legislative victories by delivering votes. He is known as "the Hammer," a name he earned as GOP whip from 1995 through 2002. He is a tireless operator, and he has come up with ingenious ways to pass legislation. He is organized: As leader he instituted weekly meetings with committee chairmen and has his aides hold similar weekly meetings with committee chiefs of staff to keep the troops in line.

DeLay's reach extends beyond Capitol Hill. His knack for behind-the-scenes machinations was made plain when the Republican-controlled Texas legislature passed a DeLay-redesigned congressional-district map that is likely to send seven new GOP members to Congress from the Lone Star State.

Another extension of DeLay's invisible hand has been felt on K Street. Conservatives long have realized how crucial the lobbying community is in determining what gets through Congress. Former New York congressman Bill Paxon resigned his House seat just as he was in position to assume the speakership in 1998 to become a K Street lobbyist. The move was seen as ruinous; rumors circulated about Paxon's private life. But Paxon, a conservative who's married to former representative Susan Molinari, understood K Street's importance. He's now a top lobbyist with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and his fingerprints are all over congressional business. Molinari also works on K Street.

Five years ago DeLay decided to turn the lobbying community to his purposes. The Hammer made it clear he wanted businesses and associations to stop hiring Democratic lobbyists. Now firms consult with DeLay and his staff before hiring lobbyists. In many cases, DeLay handpicks K Street hires. Tony Rudy, a former DeLay staffer, is now a senior partner at the Alexander Strategy Group, an influential lobby shop.

Norquist recently formalized DeLay's strategy by starting the K Street Project, which seeks to identify Democrat-leaning lobbyists and bring pressure to bear on firms that hire them.

IN THE HOUSE, DELAY WORKS CLOSELY WITH SPEAKER DENnis Hastert, who has the job because DeLay wanted him to have it. Although they have different public personas--Hastert is portrayed as a Midwesterner who survives on a diet of humble pie while DeLay is the fire-breathing Texas conservative--the two are longtime friends. DeLay brought Hastert into the leadership circle in 1995 when he made the Illinois Republican his chief deputy whip. In December 1998, when Louisiana congressman Bob Livingston pulled out of the race for speaker following his admission that he had committed adultery, DeLay elevated Hastert into the post rather than himself.

The move reveals something about DeLay's willingness to put cause above ego. At the time, Republicans were on the losing side of the public-relations battle because of their pursuit of Clinton's impeachment and obsession with the President's sexual peccadillos. DeLay, realizing his image as a conservative extremist was not an antidote to the problem, pushed Hastert and his anodyne veneer.

The Speaker's mild-mannered appearance notwithstanding, Hastert is a bare-knuckles player. He ran DeLay's campaign for GOP whip in 1994 and rounded up the votes for an upset victory. Some say Speaker Hastert has been even tougher on Democrats than his predecessor, Newt Gingrich. Hastert has imposed a "closed rule" on legislation brought to the House floor, effectively preventing Democrats from adding amendments to bills under consideration.

"We're very similar," DeLay told the New Yorker. "We're both very strong Christians. We're both very strong conservatives. We come from very similar backgrounds. There's not much difference between us."

BILL FRIST'S ELEVATION TO SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MIRrors Hastert's rise in the House. Two years ago, soon after the GOP reclaimed the Senate, Republican leader Trent Lott made the mistake of quipping at a birthday celebration for Strom Thurmond that he thought the country might be better off if the then-segregationist Dixiecrat had won the presidency in 1948. Over at the White House, where Karl Rove, the President's chief strategist, was hatching plans to institutionalize the conservative revolution, Lott was a problem.

Frist was put forward as the man to replace Lott, and the caucus quickly coalesced around his candidacy. An articulate Southerner and a physician, Frist had more public appeal than other senators jockeying for the post. While no one has publicly admitted Rove's influence in Frist's getting the job, it's generally accepted that Rove cleared the way.

Frist and Rove had developed a relationship when Frist ran the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and engineered the Republican win of the Senate in 2002. In doing so the tall Tennessean showed a willingness to go for the jugular, going on the airwaves with ad campaigns that used video of Osama bin Laden to question the patriotism of Democrats.

Triumph of the Neocons

A LOT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT HOW A HANDFUL OF conservative thinkers managed, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, to co-opt American foreign policy. Alarmists contend that an influential group of "neoconservatives" made Saddam Hussein into a paper tiger and linked him to the war on terror because they wanted to export American imperialism. The evidence for this is found in memos written in the late 1990s at a small foreign-policy think tank called the Project for the New American Century.

The Project for the New American Century was started in 1997 by William Kristol, founder and editor of the Weekly Standard, and Robert Kagan, a Washington Post columnist and former State Department official. The center was created to provide a headquarters for neocon thinkers who were spread out among conservative publications and think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.

The neoconservative movement emerged in the 1960s and '70s. Liberals coined the term "neocon" to mock the conservative intellectuals, many of whom were old liberals who had defected from the Democratic Party in part because, in the post-Vietnam era, it had become wary of using America's armed might. Irving Kristol--godfather of the neocon movement--was the most notable defector, and he called for the assertion of military power abroad.

When Ronald Reagan ran for president, the neoconservatives embraced his advocacy of a major military buildup. Hardliners like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz landed jobs in his administration. Working in the Reagan Defense Department on arms-control negotiations with the Soviet Union, Perle earned the nickname "Prince of Darkness." His approach was not to negotiate. In a game of nuclear chicken, he believed, the Soviets ultimately would blink. Perle gets credit from many for the hardline Reagan posture that led to the end of the Cold War.

DURING THE GEORGE H.W. BUSH YEARS--THE FIRST BUSH presidency--the neocons fell out of favor. Poppy aides like James Baker and Brent Scrowcroft were for consensus-building and new world orders, not Rambo-inspired solutions. Even so, some neocons found jobs, among them Irving Kristol's son, William Kristol, who worked for Vice President Dan Quayle. The neocons drifted for a few years until Republicans took control of Congress in the 1994 elections. Gingrich and other conservative lawmakers were receptive to the neocons.

In 1995 Kristol teamed up with journalists Fred Barnes and John Podhoretz to start the Weekly Standard, a magazine different in both style and substance from the National Review, the venerable conservative-opinion journal started by William F. Buckley Jr. Kristol's magazine, located in Washington, was designed to steer the new Republican majority.

Two years later, Kristol and Kagan launched the Project for the New American Century. It espoused a big increase in military spending and a muscular foreign policy that would take out hostile heads of state and foster democratic capitalist regimes. The Project's initial policy statements were signed by such Republicans as Dick Cheney, Midge Decter Forbes, and Cheney's future chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

One of the group's earliest memos called for toppling Saddam Hussein. Among its cosigners were Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, and Richard Perle.

Flash forward to 2001. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are running the Defense Department. Perle is chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an unpaid panel that advises the secretary and has access to classified documents. Elliott Abrams, who resigned from the Reagan administration as a result of his involvement in Iran-Contra, is a member of George W. Bush's National Security Council. Republicans like Colin Powell who favor an internationalist foreign policy are outnumbered.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, President Bush moves closer to the neocons, who offer clarity of purpose and direction. The President is particularly swayed by Wolfowitz's virtuoso briefings on the importance of removing Saddam.

The chief measure of neoconservative success is that their foreign-policy convictions are now shared by such mainstream conservatives as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Newt Gingrich, a regular counselor to the White House. Conservatives see the war on terror as the Cold War of the 21st century. The exception is found on the isolationist far right, whose most prominent advocate is television commentator and sometime presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who has started a magazine called the American Conservative to promote the America First perspective.

Iraq has not yet produced the fruits promised by the neoconservatives, but that has not slowed them. Perle and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter who helped coin the phrase "axis of evil," have published a book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. They call for using America's military to confront North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Iran. They also push for a line-in-the-sand stance against France, Germany, and the United Nations.

Rise of the Religious Right

LAST JUNE, 14 EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS TOOK THEIR SEATS in a conference room at an apartment complex in Arlington. The meeting was held near the home of Sandy Rios, president of the advocacy group Concerned Women for America, and choreographed by the Reverend Donald Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, a conservative Christian organization in Tupelo, Mississippi. Together, the group represented a big swath of the Republican base: An estimated 70 million people consider themselves evangelicals.

The meeting's purpose was to discuss the religious right's to-do list and figure out how the evangelists could dovetail their efforts. Wildmon and others like Gary Bauer, founder of the Christian conservative group American Values, worried that the Republican lock on Washington was dampening the conservative fire. Volunteers and donations were on the wane. Evangelicals outside the Beltway weren't in the same fighting spirit they had been in when Clinton occupied the Oval Office.

When the discussion turned to gay marriage, the group decided the courts were moving against them and the White House was sitting on the fence. By the end of the session, the leaders had decided to call themselves the Arlington Group and to push for a constitutional amendment that would bar homosexuals from marrying.

Since its first gathering, the Arlington Group's membership has grown to 21 and its influence has reverberated across Washington. It has staged press conferences and rallies, using "the homosexual agenda" to motivate supporters. Members of the alliance include Chuck Colson, president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, and Tony Perkins, the new president of the Family Research Council. They have used radio, television, e-mail, and direct mail to tell evangelicals about a constitutional amendment. Perkins has distributed a marriage-protection pledge to every elected state and federal official in the country.

In November several Arlington Group members went to Capitol Hill and berated Republicans, including Colorado representative Marilyn Musgrave, for proposing legislation that would amend the constitution but leave the door open for state-sponsored civil unions. Among them was Arlington Group leader and former Reagan Cabinet member William Bennett, known as the "virtue czar" for his best-selling books on morality. He's also cochair of Empower America, a conservative group he started with former senator and vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp. Bennett had maintained a low profile after a May story in Newsweek revealed that he was a high-rolling gambler, but he came out with guns blazing on the gay-marriage issue.

"The GOP-sponsored Federal Marriage Amendment would do little to preserve the institution of marriage because it would leave to state legislators the option of creating civil unions," Bennett wrote. "In short, the distinction between a civil union and a marriage is no greater than that between slavery and involuntary servitude, both of which were outlawed, for good reason, by the 13th Amendment. Following the logic of the Federal Marriage Amendment, involuntary servitude would have been left up to state legislatures after the Civil War."

Karl Rove talked with Arlington Group members by speakerphone during a session held at the Family Research Council's offices in early February. At that session, Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, and others peppered Rove on Bush's decision not to call for a constitutional amendment in his State of the Union speech. They warned Rove that their supporters might stay home on Election Day. Rove assured them that Bush was on their side. A few weeks later the President called for a constitutional amendment.

Just as the Arlington Group was making progress, the Christian Coalition began moving in a different direction. The Coalition, which has distributed millions of voter guides in elections (70 million in 2000), is led by Roberta Combs. A self-described friend of Rove's and Bush's, Combs has been working to bring the Coalition back from the brink. The organization, started by the Reverend Pat Robertson, got lots of attention when it was led by wunderkind Ralph Reed, who left in 1997 to become a GOP consultant in Georgia. At its peak, the organization claimed 4 million members and a $25-million budget. Its voter guides and mobilization efforts played a big role in knocking the Democrats out of power in the 1994 elections. Today, observers say, the Christian Coalition has perhaps half the number of members and is in debt.

Combs, an early member of the Arlington Group, recently broke ranks. She wrote a letter telling members to get behind the marriage amendment giving states the latitude to enact civil unions, arguing that a softer measure would have a better chance of passage.

Religious conservatives continue to be an important part of the national dialogue. George W. Bush's success in 2000 came with overwhelming support from evangelicals. Many still cite the debate at which the candidates were asked to name their favorite philosopher and Bush answered, "Jesus." President Bush is not likely to forget 1992: When Republicans marginalize the religious right, as his father did, they lose elections.

Hearts and Minds: Think Tanks and Organizations

"WHEN YOU WORK IN THE WHITE HOUSE, you don't get to see your old friends as much as you'd like," said Ronald Reagan as he stood in front of a ballroom full of conservatives after his second inauguration in 1985. "And I always see the Conservative Political Action Conference speech as my opportunity to 'dance with the one that brung ya.' I've been thinking, in the weeks since the inauguration, that we are at an especially dramatic turning point in American history. . . . The truth is, conservative thought is no longer over here on the right; it's the mainstream now. And the tide of history is moving irresistibly in our direction. Why? Because the other side is virtually bankrupt of ideas. It has nothing more to say, nothing to add to the debate. It has spent its intellectual capital, such as it was, and it has done its deeds."

The modern conservative movement began 21 years before Reagan made that speech when his mentor, Barry Goldwater, ran for president. While the Arizona Republican lost in a rout, he put forward a set of ideas that attracted and inspired many others. His candidacy laid the groundwork for Reagan, who, with a Goldwateresque platform of lowering taxes, limiting government, defeating Communism, and promoting Christian morality, was elected governor of California in 1966 and president in 1980.

In between the presidential campaigns of Goldwater and Reagan, things changed for conservatives--most notably in Washington. And it was change based on the cultivation of ideas. Nowadays, it's common to hear Democrats talk dreamily about the dawning of a Goldwater-like era for liberals; the hope being that someone might come along to spur Democrats to create the kind of enduring institutions that have allowed conservatives to seize and retain power.

When Goldwater went down to defeat, conservative leaders met in Washington to figure out how to rebound from the loss. Stalwarts like William F. Buckley Jr. and L. Brent Bozell were there. They founded the American Conservative Union, the first conservative lobbying group. Six years later, in 1971, it began rating members of Congress, giving the highest marks to the most conservative members. A few years later, the group started hosting the Conservative Political Action Conference, a national convention of the American right.

In 1984 David Keene became chair of the ACU, and he has turned it into a political behemoth. The "conservative scorecard" has become a seal of approval for GOP lawmakers. The ratings are fodder for the media, particularly right-wing talk radio, and political campaigns. For 2003, Missouri congressman Roy Blunt, the House majority whip, received a score of 88, the same mark given to Tom DeLay, while Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi received a 12.

The ACU's annual conference has grown into a three-day event. It draws thousands to hear top speakers, and it mixes debates, forums, and planning with socializing. Recent speakers have been Vice President Dick Cheney, Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie, the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly, conservative author Ann Coulter, Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao, and California congressman Christopher Cox.

Former congressional aides and Goldwater enthusiasts Paul Weyrich and Edwin Fuelner started the Heritage Foundation in 1973 as a place to nourish conservative thinking. They had strong beliefs about the way government should work, and they wanted to create an alternative to the American Enterprise Institute, which they felt was moderate and feckless. Today AEI, a neocon-friendly operation, is very influential--its economic, foreign-policy, and social-policy scholars, such as Michael Ledeen and Lynne Cheney, have close ties to the administration.

Heritage would give lawmakers practical research that they could run with. One of Heritage's early formulations was Social Security privatization; other ideas it gave currency were missile defense, supply-side economics, school choice, and the flat tax. Fuelner has presided over the place since 1977.

With funding from Joseph Coors, Edward Noble, and Richard Mellon Scaife, Heritage has an annual budget of $30 million. It doubled the size of its headquarters north of the Capitol by absorbing the building next door. The eight-story headquarters has a library-like atmosphere. It employs almost 200 people and has TV and radio studios and a 250-seat auditorium, whose functions are often shown live on the Internet. Author Laura Ingraham produces her daily radio show from Heritage's studios. Heritage started Townhall.com, a Web site that acts as a gathering place for the right. It offers columns, news, blogs, and Web links. Townhall.com now hosts monthly social gatherings organized through the Web site Meetup.com; for the last Townhall.com Meetup, there were parties for conservatives in more than 200 cities.

When in Doubt, Attack

ONE OF GROVER NORQUIST'S DESIRES IS TO see Ronald Reagan's face on Mount Rushmore. In 1997 he began the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, through which big-name conservatives are trying to get every county in the country to memorialize the 40th president. Among the people behind the effort are Ed Fuelner, John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, Senators Rick Santorum and Mitch McConnell, and Representatives Dan Burton and Jennifer Dunn.

Renaming Washington National Airport after Reagan was Norquist's biggest coup; an aircraft carrier, Florida freeway, and California courthouse now also bear Reagan's name. A bill in the House would supplant Alexander Hamilton's face on the $10 bill with Reagan's. A few months ago, Indiana congressman Mark Edward Souder almost pinned a measure to the Medicare reform bill that would have replaced FDR's face on the dime with Ronald Reagan's. He gathered more than 80 cosponsors.

Another conservative with strong feelings for Reagan is Thomas Phillips, whose Washington-based media company owns the venerable Human Events tabloid newspaper, the Conservative Book Club, and Regnery Publishing. Among the company's best-selling conservative tomes are Bias by Bernard Goldberg and Unlimited Access by Gary Aldrich. Phillips named his son after Reagan.

By dotting the landscape with monuments and sites lauding Reagan, conservatives hope to spin his legacy before historians get involved. After all, in history, as in politics, the best defense is a good offense.

SIDEBAR:

Who Pushes the Issue Buttons

CONSERVATIVE ISSUE GROUPS HAVE LOTS OF INFLUENCE over what happens in Washington. The heavyweights who run these groups can get legislation passed and defeated, politicians elected or defeated, judges appointed or rejected.

One of the most feared of these players is Stephen Moore, president of Club for Growth, an anti-tax political action committee that enlists candidates, runs campaign ads, and lobbies Congress. He has a track record of getting politicians to vote the way he wants. He's as willing to savage a Republican as he is a Democrat. In fact, nothing riles him more than moderate Republicans he calls RINOs--Republicans in Name Only.

Moore is now after Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, the senator who once took on Anita Hill. Thanks to Moore, Specter has a primary opponent. The senator's major offense: He tinkered with President Bush's tax-cut proposal. Moore also wants to unseat Specter because, as he told one reporter, having "a major scalp on the wall" would frighten other Republicans. Moore's running a $200,000 ad campaign claiming that Specter's ideological soul mate is John Kerry.

Specter's campaign has filed a cease-and-desist lawsuit. Moore's response: "Senator Specter seems to have had a temporary bout of Mad Dean Disease."

Other important leaders:

National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre.

National Right to Life Committee president Wanda Franz.

American Gaming Association president and former National Republican Committee chairman Frank Fahrenkopf.

National Beer Wholesalers Association president David K. Rehr.

US Chamber of Commerce president Thomas J. Donohue.

Federalist Society executive director Eugene Meyer.

Independent Women's Forum president Nancy M. Pfotenhauer.

Traditional Values Coalition executive director Andrea Lafferty.

John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

SIDEBAR:

Who's Good at Spreading The Right Kind of Words?

THE OLD SAW ABOUT THE LIBERAL MEDIA CAN BE REFUTED by a few clicks of the TV remote. Not only are conservatives well represented on television, but the divergence of right-wing thought is there in full view. Channel-surf and you'll encounter administration apologists, champions of protectionism, supply-siders, and religious fundamentalists. Here are a few of the anti-liberal opinion-slingers on the airwaves.

David Brooks--A fixture on PBS's NewsHour, the urbane Brooks laughs a little too much at his own jokes, but he has been given his own New York Times column, joining William Safire as one of the Gray Lady's two resident right-wingers. Brooks is an opportunity-society, pro-military conservative, but his punditry isn't confined to politics. In his best-selling book, Bobos in Paradise, and other writings, he muses on soccer moms and barbecue-grill dads. Brooks is sometimes criticized from the right for being less than a full-blown conservative: He's in favor of gay marriage, and the leftish American Prospect dubbed him "a conservative you can bring home to your liberal parents."

Tucker Carlson--Boyish, bow-tied, and full of sarcasm, Carlson is the leading Generation-X conservative. It's fun to watch the boy king twit James Carville and Paul Begala on CNN's Crossfire, declaiming, "That's outrageous! That's outrageous!" Carlson has confessed he was on the Atkins diet, had a devil of a time quitting smoking, and seems besotted with Senator John McCain--but he's getting his own show on PBS. He's probably the only conservative not welcome on Fox News. While on the air defending telemarketers, Carlson was asked for his home phone number, but the number he gave was for Fox News's Washington bureau. Its lines were jammed with calls. In retaliation Fox posted Carlson's unlisted home number on its Web site. Mrs. Carlson and the couple's four children were deluged with calls, many profane. Fox agreed to pull down the number if Carlson apologized on CNN. After he did, Carlson denounced the Fox types as a "mean, sick group of people."

Charles Krauthammer--A Fox News regular, a panelist on WUSA's Inside Washington, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post, Krauthammer is entertaining, influential, often prescient--and just as often merciless. About Al Gore, Krauthammer invoked his previous career as a psychiatrist and said, "He could use a little help." He's written that "liberals are stupid" and Ted Kennedy is "unhinged from reality." No wonder Democratic consultant James Carville has called him "a little neocon gopher." It's hard to believe Krauthammer used to write speeches for Walter Mondale.

Robert Novak--With his scowl and unmanageable comb-over, Novak looks like he tumbled out of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Still, he's a hot commodity, appearing on CNN and NBC and writing a widely syndicated column. For decades he has delighted the right with his excoriations of liberals. He's recently taken fire from all sides for naming an undercover CIA agent in his column. Before that, a cover story in the National Review attacked the columnist, who opposed the war in Iraq and isn't fond of the Bush administration's support of Israel, branding him "unpatriotic," a term righties usually reserve for liberals.

George Will--A protege of William F. Buckley Jr., the nerdy and brilliant Will rose to punditry fame in the 1980s as a columnist and ABC News commentator. His TV presence has diminished since the producers of This Week jettisoned the show's roundtable segment. Will's political insights often are compelling--even if his analysis isn't always trustworthy. In his column on November 9, 1989, he confidently predicted that the Berlin Wall "will remain." It came down that very day. In 1980 he presented viewers with a sunny characterization of Ronald Reagan's debate performance against President Carter--but neglected to mention that he had helped coach the candidate. Will recently praised controversial media baron Conrad Black in his column without telling readers that he had received many thousands of dollars in speaking fees from Black. When the New York Times questioned him about a possible quid pro quo, Will tartly replied: "My business is my business. Got it?"

GRAPHIC: Illustration by Steve Brodner; Picture, Gangs of DC: From Capitol Hill to the White House to K Street and beyond, conservative leaders are talking tough. Always ready to rumble are RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, White House strategist Karl Rove, House majority leader Tom DeLay, movement organizer Grover Norquist, GOP consultant MaryMatalin, and neocon guru William Kristol.; Picture, Bill Paxon left the GOP congressional leadership to find fortune--and maybe even greater influence--as a lobbyist.; Paxon photograph courtesy of the Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Picture, Susan Molinari--like her husband, Bill Paxon--left Congress for the riches of K Street.; Molinari photograph courtesy of the Washington Post Writers Group; Picture, Newt Gingrich used gloves-off tactics in bringing the Republican revolution to Capitol Hill.; Gingrich photograph by Linda Spillers; Picture, Pulitzer Prize-winning star of print and TV Charles Krauthammer, an ex-psychiatrist, is often brilliant--and often merciless.; Photograph courtesy of the Washington Post Writers Group; Picture, In arms-control negotiations with the Soviets, Richard Perletook the ultimate hardline position: He refused tonegotiate.; Photograph courtesy of American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; Sidebar Picture, Club for Growth's Stephen Moore goes after moderate Republicans as fiercely as he goes after Democrats.; Moore photograph courtesy of Club for Growth