Marble Composition

What Is Conservatism?

I read the blogger Digby all the time. He has some of the best medium-to-long form posts out there, and he can boil things down like few others. I had forgotten one of his quotes until today, when Rick Perlstein, a higly acclaimed political writer, recycled it in a speech at a conference at Princeton Univeristy:

"'Conservative' is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals."

I would highly recommend reading the whole speech (don't be scared, it's fairly short), but there is a lot of inside-baseball-political stuff in it, so I'll snag a few bits and post them here. Like this:

Well, I'm writing now, however, not in an age of Clintonian triangulation, but in an age where the notion of conservative Republicans seeing as their first duty divesting themselves of the power they have been given seems perfectly absurd. Perhaps that is why it has become my thesis that the Republicans are less the party of Goldwater, and more the party of Watergate--and this not despite the operational ascendecy of the conservative movement in its councils but in some sense because of it.

The quotes from prominent conservatives in the next couple of grafs are priceless:

This past year, I interviewed Richard Viguerie about conservatives and the presidential campaign. I showed him an infamous flier the Republican National Committee had willingly taken credit for, featuring a crossed-out Bible and the legend, "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." "To do this," Viguerie told me, "it reminds me of Bush the 41st, and not just him, but other non-conservative Republicans.

"Republicans are different from conservatives: that was one of the first lessons I learned when I started interviewing YAFers. I learned it making small talk with conservative publisher Jameson Campaigne, in Ottawa, Illinois, when I asked him if he golfed. He said something like: "Are you kidding? I'm a conservative, not a Republican."

Really? You're neither. You're an intellectual fraud. This is about nothing more than the consolidation and maintenance of power. It's really very simple. Go looking for some kind of logical underpinning to the way conservatives govern and all you'll find is an empty lot.

I get the question all the time from smart liberal friends: what is conservatism, anyway? They're baffled. "As far as I can tell, anything someone on the right does is, by definition, ethical. It's not about the act, or even the motivation. It's about who's perpetrating it." It has become the name for a movement that can scream from the rooftops that every Supreme Court nominee should have an expiditious up-or-down vote, then 15 seconds later demand tortuous proceduralism when that nominee is Harriet Miers. Flexibility is the first principle of politics.
...

I'm trying to make here an argument not about instances, but about a structure of thought. It is the structure of thought betrayed, I think, by Ahmed Chalabi, explaining his deliberate deception of U.S. intelligence: "We were heroes in error."

Is Chalabi, or Jerry Falwell, a "principled conservative" or a "pragmatic conservative." That's a question I'd like to pose to you all. My head hurts just thinking about it.

Mine too. That's because the "party of ideas", the Republicans, home to conservatism, completely lacks any that lead to solid governance.

Let's tack in the other direction. Here we have Ann Coulter, Acid Queen from the right (not the good stuff either, the sulfuric kind that burns your face off), saying things like this, right after I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was indicted:

And as for Rove and Libby, I don't know. I don't understand why that would have any effect on the White House. He doesn't need Rove anymore. I feel sorry for Rove personally -- I don't know what's going to happen. If he is indicted, I feel for him personally. It has nothing to do with Bush and the Republican Party. He doesn't need Rove again, and I never heard of Scooter Libby until 10 minutes ago. (emphasis mine)

We have someone who presents herself as an astute political analyst playing the dumb blonde who has no idea what's going on. On national TV no less. Now, many people who follow politics would pooh-pooh me here for even bringing Ann Coulter up, but, as I've said before, she sells a lot of books. Millions, in fact. The point here is that she wears her anti-intellectualism like a badge of honor. She needs to foist it on us all like a proud marker. She's either lying through her teeth about Libby, or, if she really has no idea who he is, then she has no business writing about politics at all.

This represents the other face of modern conservatism: obfuscation, lying, and playing dumb. Really dumb.

So, what is Conservatism? As near as I can tell it's about buying and maintaining political power, shifting the tax bruden from corporations and rich people to the lower and middle classes, alienating our allies abroad, and poking the entire world in the eye by stomping around like a mad elephant and starting a war of chioce for little or no reason at all.

Now, run along and go read this piece by Digby...

Update: [12/7 5:52 pm] Here's another great bit on the subject from James Wolcott over at Tracer Fire: Intelligent Design: Opiate of the Dummies

posted by FuzzFinger @ 12/06/2005 06:31:00 PM