The attack on the so-cons begins

Noted in passing...

Blogger Jay Currie attributes the demise of The Report to the alleged inherent problem that Canadians have with social conservatism. If Canadians won't pay for these ideas to be printed, therefore there is something inherently wrong with the ideas. (It's an idea that Frank, for one, noted the last time that they took pot shots at the magazine.)

I won't address this here, aside from noting that I hope, for his own sake, that Link Byfield has some good responses ready when reporters and columnists start to make this argument.

Update: Ian King's The Vancouver Scrum is someone else making the "if-conservatism-is-so-great-why-did-the-Report fold" point:

"My goodness -- it appears that the magazine that promoted the primacy of the free market in matters economic (and some sort of conservative Protestantism in matters social) has been given the middle finger by Adam Smith's invisible hand."

He adds that The Report shouldn't have turned its back this year on the federal government postal subsidy offered to all Canadian periodicals.

Second update: Jay Curriewrites again, at some length, on what he thinks is needed to placate the "urban conservative" with subscription and advertising dollars which can fund a new national Canadian conservative magazine. The nub of his argument: "The trick is to leave the social conservatives...to sink in the tar pit of their own irrelevance."