Great blog post!

[EstimatedProphet]

The Death of American Conservatism
February 12, 2006
Steven Hart

Listening to right-wingers complain that George W. Bush isn't a "real conservative," I am reminded of the forlorn holdouts for communism that could still be found in the late 1970s. By then, the sordid and corrupt nature of the Soviet Union had been fully exposed, but these true believers continued to insist that "real" communism had yet to be tried, and that if people would only stop and listen to Gus Hall, then the promised land would be there for all to see.

Nowadays, if you want to hear tired old hymns being sung to a dead god, check out any gathering of conservatives and listen to them whine. Today's distress call comes from Paul Mulshine, resident winger at the Star-Ledger, who went to last week's Conservative Political Action Conference and found nothing more inspiring to write about than the empty quacking of Phyllis Schlafly and the prospect of George Allen running for president. The Republicans have spent the better part of a decade with their collective foot on the Democratic Party's collective neck, and yet Mulshine and Schlafly sound worried and exhausted. They have had everything they ever wanted, and yet everything has gone wrong.

The reliable old jingo war chants have mired us in a contemptible military adventure in Iraq that has already ended terribly, regardless of how many more lives we waste on it; our ideals have been deeply stained and our image is now linked with torture and clandestine brutality. The John Wayne wannabes have swaggered us into deep quicksand; the hypocritical cant about spreading democracy with bombs and lies has been rewarded with electoral victories for Islamist terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank, and an Iraqi parliament openly allied with Iran. When he took office, George W. Bush faced a world in which Islamists controlled a single country; five years later, they control an entire region. Bush claims the right to monitor, arrest and imprison anyone he wants, yet the mastermind behind 9/11 hasn't lost a single night's sleep. This "war on terror" threatens everyone except terrorists.

The situation is even bleaker at home. Polls show that the voters can't wait for this administration to vacate the premises. The notion that conservatism stands for fiscal restraint is a hollow joke. The GOP has used its control of Congress and the White House to pitch us into a sinkhole of debt. Crony capitalists and Republican campaign contributors have been throwing themselves a party and leaving the taxpayers to pick up the tab. The basic, bedrock functions of government -- national security, infrastructure maintenance, disaster relief -- have been handled so incompetently that we are no safer from terrorist attacks today than we were five years ago. With the next hurricane season only a few months away, odds are good that another American city will join New Orleans on the list of Republican successes. But hey, what else can we expect? As the conservatives love to tell us: Government doesn't work!

More at link:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/02/12/204944.php

[JeffR]

1. Thanks, good read

I was surprised to learn that that wizened old hag Schlafly is still around...

[EstimatedProphet]

2. Unfortunately she is, and taken seriously by morons as much as ever