Marble Composition

The Failure of Conservatism

The absolute repudiation of the ideology of Conservatism is one of my mental hobby-horses, and while I certainly don't write about it enough, a group called Take America Back actually held an entire conference on just that subject. Joy.

They've posted a debate between Robert Kuttner and William Kristol arguing "Can Conservatives be Trusted to Govern", here. Quick answer: if they had any interest in governing, they might care, and therefore be good at it, otherwise, not so much. I thought Kuttner handily won the debate, but that's partially due to how much material he had to work with. As he pointed out, when George W. Bush was elected, the conservative movement had reached it's zenith. They had six years to enact all their pet projects, and the result was near-complete failure.

One thing I found interesting is Kristol's behavior; he's always much more contrite and thoughtful in settings like these. On Fox News Sunday he presents himself as the quasi media administration guy, chock full of his false bravado tough talk bullshit. I give him credit for showing up in such a hostile environment though; good for him.

Not be missed though, is writer and historian Rick Perlstein's posts on Republican primary politics. I've been contemplating a long post on the Wall Street Journal's resident shitmouth John Fund, but let's have Rick start us off, here:

Writes John Fund: "The general election may be a year and a half away but the Democratic National Committee has already released its opposition research packet on the three leading GOP contenders -- just in time for reporters covering tonight's Republican presidential debate at the Reagan Library in Los Angeles."

He seems confused by the the way Democrats argue about their opponents - baffled, apparently, that it focuses merely on, you know, why they'd be bad presidents.

He concludes: "for real, substantive dirt on the Republican candidates, we'll have to depend on the GOP candidates to do their own opposition research."

What's going on here?

Allow me to explain. Character assassination, sabotage, and deception and subterfuge are not incidental to conservative politics but central to it. To them, politics without such things doesn't even feel like...politics. Catch them in a relaxed moment, and they freely admit it - with relish.

One thing that was pointed out, but never quite stated in this way is, just how the Conservative Shitty Government Feedback Loop works: Get elected on a "clean up" Washington agenda, appoint completely incompetent people to head top governmental agencies, when these agencies fail, blame the government for being unable to get anything done, have right-wing gas bags state that government never does any good at all, and then elect more idiots who can't govern.

As for the rest, Perlstein drops some nice stuff in the rest of that post.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 5/04/2007 08:26:00 PM