Sam Harris is away, leading to a postponement in the Harris vs. Sullivan debate on religion, but there are plenty of other people eager and willing to argue with Andrew Sullivan. Glenn Greenwald responds to Sullivan’s book, The Conservative Soul, debunking the argument that we are hearing frequently from conservatives that the Republicans have failed because they are not true conservatives. He also quotes others such as Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, and Newt Gingrich expressing similar arguments.
Lowry and his “conservative” comrades were anything but passive observers over the last six years. They did far more than “watch” as the President and the Congress “disgraced” themselves and damaged this country. It was self-identified “conservatives” who were the principal cheerleaders, the most ardent and loyal propagandists, propping up George Bush and his blindly loyal Republican Congress.
It was they who continuously told America that George Bush was the unified reincarnation of the Great American Conservative Hero Ronald Reagan and the Great Warrior Defender of Freedom, Winston Churchill, all wrapped up in one glorious, powerful package. It was this same conservative movement — now pretending to lament the abandonment of conservatism by Bush and the Congress — which was the single greatest source of Bush’s political support, which twice elected him and propped up his presidency and the movement which followed it.
So why, after six years of glorifying George Bush and devoting their full-fledged loyalty to him and the GOP-controlled Congress are conservatives like Lowry and Gingrich suddenly insisting that Bush is an anti-conservative and the GOP-led Congress the opposite of conservative virtue? The answer is as obvious as it is revealing. They are desperately trying to disclaim responsibility for the disasters that they wrought in the name of “conservatism,” by repudiating the political figures whom they named as the standard-bearers of their movement but whom America has now so decisively rejected.
George Bush has not changed in the slightest. He is exactly the same as he was when he was converted into the hero and icon of the “conservative movement.” The only thing that has changed is that Bush is no longer the wildly popular President which conservatives sought to embrace, but instead is a deeply disliked figured, increasingly detested by Americans, from whom conservatives now wish to shield themselves. And in this regard, these self-proclaimed great devotees of Conservative Political Principles have revealed themselves to have none.
This raises the question of why anyone would trust the Republican Party–liberal or conservative. In addition to years of control of Congress they have now had six years of control of all branches of government. If the Republicans could not be trusted to pursue the principles they express under such conditions, why trust them to pursue the conservative ideals these people claim in the future? (more…)
