Jonathan Chait: GOP's Comical Defense

[highplainsdem]

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051025/EDIT/510250323/1003

GOP's comical defense

By Jonathan Chait


I've been waiting for quite a while now for conservatives to come up with a theory to explain why large chunks of the Republican Party are, or soon will be, under indictment. The argument I've been anticipating has finally arrived, in the form of a long lead editorial in the latest edition of the influential conservative magazine the Weekly Standard.

The editorial, written by Standard Editor William Kristol and longtime conservative activist Jeffrey Bell, begins by acknowledging the uncomfortable fact that "the most prominent promoters of the conservative agenda of the Bush administration" are facing legal troubles of one kind or another. It cites the legal imbroglios of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. It neglects to mention David Safavian, the chief of staff at the General Services Administration in the Bush administration; conservative activist/super-lobbyists Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon; and Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R- Calif., and Robert W. Ney, R-Ohio, and perhaps some others I'm forgetting.

<snipping paragraphs about the Standard blaming "a comprehensive strategy of criminalization" of politics for the legal troubles the GOP is in, and the Standard carefully using the passive voice to avoid having to spell out who's responsible for this "comprehensive strategy," since that would just make it even more obviously ludicrous>

When I first read this editorial, the argument sounded vaguely familiar. And then it hit me. An old "Simpsons" episode featured a Rush Limbaugh-like talk show host bemoaning the conviction of attempted murderer and Republican loyalist Sideshow Bob. "My friends, isn't this just typical? Another intelligent conservative here, railroaded by our liberal justice system," he tells his listeners in disgust.

When it appeared on "The Simpsons," this line of reasoning was self-evident parody. Now it's being put forward in complete earnestness by one of the leading intellectual journals of the right.

<snip>

Great column about the right's "comprehensive strategy of principle abandonment."

[mac56]

1. Birch Barlow!