Marble Composition

Hobby Horse

Destroying the meme that the conservative movement can never fail, only those who fail to adhere to its purest form, is one of mine. Glenn Greenwald, writing for Salon, has taken up the mantle and as usual has done a bang-up job. For openers:

The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a "real conservative." This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who -- when his presidency looked to be an epic success -- glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.

I will take issue with one of the phrases in this passage: "now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins,...". Let's leave that for the historians to decide. The reason I dislike that kind of rhetoric is because of the ammunitions it provides the other side. I probably shouldn't care, but it's a bit too caustic.

(As an aside, I should probably never care, because most Americans don't even know what an op-ed piece is, let alone ever read one.)

That's all just quibbling though, because with the meat of the argument comes the truth:

There is really only one thing that has changed about George W. Bush from the 2002-2004 era when conservatives hailed him as the Great Conservative Leader, and now. Whereas Bush was a wildly popular leader then, which made conservatives eager to claim him as their Standard-Bearer, he is now one of the most despised presidents in U.S. history, and conservatives are thus desperate to disassociate themselves from the President for whom they are solely responsible. It is painfully obvious there is nothing noble, substantive or principled driving this right-wing outburst; it is a pure act of self-preservation.

Moreover, they're furiously scribbling to distance themselves from someone they themselves proclaimed as a "movement conservative".

I encourage you to check the quotes. It's all there.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 6/04/2007 05:38:00 PM