A Proposed Pecking Order for Honest Conservatives

As good Millian liberals, we want to promote authentic, articulate, and intelligent advocates of other points of view. Who should we liberals respect--and give a boost to, in terms of reading them, arguing with them rather than mocking them, debating them, and suggesting that others read them?

As far as honest conservatives are concerned, it's a difficult question. Those I usually suggest--economists like Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Samwick and Bill Niskanen, strategists like Richard Clarke and Tom Barnett and Brent Scowcroft, social policy types like Rod Dreher and John DiIulio, unclassifiables like Andrew Sullivan and Ross Douthat--I find dismissed as "not typical conservatives. We want a representative of the conservative point of view. Someone like Larry Kudlow or Ramesh Ponnuru."

It strikes me that those who reject my advice are (as is almost always true) making a mistake. They are going about it the wrong way. We want an "honest conservative"--a conservative intellectual adversary we can respect, who is also intelligent. But their first move is to define a "conservative" as a public supporter of the Bush regime and its deeds. That means, I think, that they are searching the empty set.

Slavoj Zizek applied this to the puppet regimes of Eastern Europe under the iron curtain:

The Trilemma: Of the three features—-personal honesty, sincere support of the regime, and intelligence—-it was possible to combine only two, never all three. If one was honest and supportive, one was not very bright; if one was bright and supportive, one was not honest; if one was honest and bright, one was not supportive...

But it applies just as well to the Bush regime. Sincere conservative supporters are not bright. Bright conservative supporters are not honest. Bright and honest conservatives are not supporters--and so are ruled out, and we are left with Larry Kudlow and Ramesh Ponnuru.

I think we should recognize that the intelligent, honest conservatives out there are not Bush supporters, and turn that to our advantage in selecting honorable intellectual adversaries.

What I would like is a list of "honest conservatives" who fit into the following categories--and let me try to give an example of a person whose existence is recognized by the mainstream media for each class:

• Class of 2000: People who in 2000 said, "George W. Bush is not qualified to be president, and we should be really worried about this."

• Class of 2001: People who in 2001 said, "I supported Bush in 2000, but George W. Bush is not listening to his honest conservative policy advisers, and we should be really worried about this." John DiIulio

• Class of 2002: People who in 2002 said, "I supported Bush in 2000 and 2001, but 911 has unhinged the administration; it's detention and other policies are counterproductive; it needs to be opposed." Richard Clarke

• Class of 2003: People who in 2003 said, "I supported Bush over 2000-2002, but enough is enough. That's it. I supported the invasion of Iraq because I was certain there was evidence of an advanced nuclear weapons program--otherwise invading Iraq was just stupid. Well, there was no advanced nuclear weapons program. Invading Iraq was just stupid. Plus there's the Medicare drug benefit. These people need to be evicted from power." Tim Barnett, Bill Niskanen

• Class of 2004: People who in 2004 said, "I've been a Bush supporter. I'm a Republican and a conservative, but I've had enough: I'm voting for Kerry." Andrew Sullivan, Bruce Bartlett, Brent Scowcroft

• Class of 2005: People who in 2005 said, "I voted for Bush in 2004. But I made a mistake. A big mistake."

• Class of 2006: People who in 2006 said, "I know I supported Bush up to last year, but that shows I'm not the brightest light on the clued-in tree." Rod Dreher, Andrew Samwick

The class of 2007--people who are now opposed to Bush only because they think Bush will drag the Republicans down in 2008--doesn't count. Dead-enders who are still claiming that Bush is Teddy Roosevelt don't count. They aren't honest conservatives. They are only worth scorn, and fit objects for nothing but mockery. One just doesn't joust with them in honorable intellectual combat. It's not done.

I say divide "honest conservatives" into the classes of 2000 to 2006, rank them by seniority according to the date of their public honesty, and use that as a ranking for who to read, who to respect, and who to promote as worthy intellectual adversaries. Refer to them using this citation form:

Brent Scowcroft, Honest Conservative Class of 2004...

Who else falls where in this classification?

Comments

[Neil B.]

James Kilpatrick always impressed me as a very honest and capable conservative who could and should be respected. Well, after he dropped his rather extreme states-rights, paleocon anti-civil rights posture. Note this sign of his own open-mindedness: "In 1998, Kilpatrick, then a widower, married a second time, to liberal Washington-based syndicated columnist Marianne Means." (Wikipedia - I guess this article provides no grounds for suspicion.) Compare to a supercilious, sneering and disingenuously pseudo-reasonable prick like George Will.

[Neil B.]

Well, I don't know what Kilpatrick really says about Bush. He still writes at 87, here:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JamesJKilpatrick
Sorry that I'm too lazy to research his evolving opinions on GWB, but Kilpatrick is so concerned with the details of the issue at hand (which is admirable) that it is hard to see what he thinks of so-and-so. Isn't that great?

[John Emerson]

A contrary point of view [edited form of earlier version]:

"Honest Conservatives Should Shut the Fuck Up"

I think that when the "honest conservatives" reject Bush they're just setting up their assault on the Democratic president they expect to see elected next year. Their way of digging themselves out from under the Bush disaster (and obscuring their own massive role in that disaster) will be to swear that "Never again can an American President be allowed that kind of free hand!" This will justify their fighting the new Democratic President tooth and nail for every inch of ground.

For example, Bush's politicization of the career staff in Justice and elsewhere was a very bad thing, no? And certainly this kind of thing has to stop, no? So we will forbid the new Democratic President to interfere with career personnel, with the result that all of the political hacks Bush put in civil service positions will be untouchable. (When that happens, can we expect the media to understand what's going on? No, of course not. Can we expect the Democrats to understand? Not really, but this is one area where I'd trust Rahm Emmanuel. Send a hack to catch a hack.)

Now that they've stolen the horse, they're going to lock the barn door. It's just like January 2001: once Bush was inaugurated, the media and the Republicans decided that sabotage by impeachment and Gingrichian nastiness are really very bad things after all. So now the same people who worked so hard trying to impeach Clinton for almost nothing are telling us that it's unthinkable to do anything serious about Bush's much graver crimes.

In the long run we need a two-party [or multi-party] system, so ultimately we want the Republican Party to be rebuilt on sane, civilized principles [or replaced by a different, non-insane party]. But let's not rush into this. For the moment our task is to boot the Republicans out of office and start repairing the damage they've done. The role of the sane conservatives in this will be to sit in the back of the room with paper bags over their heads and their hands folded quietly on their laps.

[Kate G.]

I've got to agree with John Emerson on this one. An honest conservative? I've yet to see one who is *still in the Republican party.*

Look, maybe there were "conservatives" once who had some actual principles that they thought the Republican party as then constituted was the best party for those principles. But from the moment Bush ran for office the first time, and from the moment he stopped running and started ruling, it has to have been as obvious to any sane person that he was a disaster. If you were too stupid to notice what he was up to (massive expansion of government power, of executive power, looting of public monies for private gain, failure to protect the country, failure of due diligence on intelligence matters, fomenting false war with people not at war with us, rewriting the laws etc..etc...etc...) you are frankly too stupid to be allowed to vote at all.

If you started coming around after you began to pay attention you still don't get any credit if you didn't take to the streets, demand your money back, and renounce membership in the party as a whole. Because bush's policies can't be separated from his policy hacks and his supporters in congress and the senate. Bush couldn't have done what he has done without their help and they told us--boy how they told us--that Bush was their standard bearer in every sense of the word. Remember how we had to hear about how he was our "commander in chief" and how he was a "true conservative" and the heir to Reagan--hell, the heir to winston churchill?--Remember all that.

If you were sane enough and grounded enough to realize what a lie all that was exactly what was left of "the party" to make any righteous person continue to call themselves a republican? Let alone an honest person.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that at this point, and (to my mind) fairly soon after 2000 if you wanted to have the word "honest" or even "aware" or maybe even just "sentient" appended to your name you would have had to re-register yourself as a *&^% communist in protest against what had been done to your party.

At any rate, its not my place to join in the pointless, spurious, ritual handwashing by conservative hacks of their culpability in the matter of Iraq and the trashing of our constitution. Not though all the seas were incarnadined can they wash the blood from their hands. I don't care what they try to call themselves--rose is rose is rose and lying, culpable, complicit, war mongering, fool is lying, culpable, complicigt, war mongering fool.

This was all foretold, of course, by Monty Python in the famous and oft quoted scene "lets not argue about who killed who." Yes, *lets argue about it* lets talk about it, lets shout it, until the pundit class, the worker bees, the anonymous and the banal little time servers on the right have eaten enough dirt to writhe on the floor in real agony and not pretended sorrow.

kate G.

[Brian Schmidt]

For those folks looking for blogs wholly or partially authored by honest conservatives:

Bill Niskannen, Honest Conservative Class of 2003:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/

Andrew Sullivan, Honest Conservative Class of 2004:
http://andrewsullivan.com/

Bruce Bartlett, Honest Conservative Class of 2004:
http://bartlettblog.townhall.com/

Rod Dreher, Honest Conservative Class of 2006:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/

Andrew Samwick, Honest Conservative Class of 2006:
http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/

[Objectivist]

What a load of BS. People voted for Bush and supported him because they were racists, theocons, and very rich. Thats it. Nothing else. If you aren't a racist, christian fundamentalist, or very rich (meaning minimum wealth of ten million dollars or more), then you had no reason to vote for Bush, and made the term sadist quaint.

[Miracle Max]

I doubt that Niskanen supported the second invasion of Iraq. He didn't support the first.

[elliottg]

I know Bartlett said he would never have voted for Kerry. I heard him say it. Doesn't really matter because although you're perfectly willing to get shrill at the Washington Post or Chomsky, for some reason you can't bring yourself to take the same attitude towards Republicans. There is no honest Republican anywhere. I contend that the death of the honest Republican happened when they did not take to the streets protesting (for real) in Florida 2000.

[Bruce Bartlett]

It's true that I never said I would vote for John Kerry. What I did say, publicly, was that if Bill Clinton had been running in 2004 I would have voted for him.

I admit, with the benefit of hindsight, that I should have seen the light sooner. My defense is that I didn't believe anything George W. Bush said during the 2000 campaign. I thought "compasionate conservatism" was just BS cooked up by Karl Rove or somebody because it got a good reaction in focus groups.

I should have listened to my friend Ed Crane of the Cato Institute, who repeatedly reminds me that he nailed Bush in an August 4, 1999 op ed article in the New York Times. For some reason, I cannot now find it in the Times archives, but Cato has a copy here:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4967

[Bradford DeLong]

So Ed Crane has seniority?

[ken]

This is really weird.

Have you learned nothing about idealogical conservatism and the American conservatives over the last forty years?

Trying to save conservatism from conservatives is like trying to save communism from communists.

Why do you bother?

[Kate G.]

Bruce Bartlett,

I'm sorry, I'm suffering from some kind of hysterical deafness, or something, but did you just say in your own defence that you "should have seen the light" in 2000 on Bush but that you relied on confidence that he was lying to you and the rest of the voters on compassionate conservativism? The one *tolerable* moment in Bush's history when he at least *pretended* to care about people other than his close circle of wealthy friends was, to you, an obvious lie which you supported because it gave all Bush's other, presumed real, policy initatives a chance??? And then you did or didn't like those? I'm not familiar enough with your ouevre to know whether you came for the tax cuts and stayed for the bigotry or vice versa. All I got was this lousy war. But hey, John Kerry was a coward *and* a war criminal and Michael Moore is fat and you didn't have any choice in the 2004 election because Bill Clinton wasn't running.

If I had a dime for every time a former Bush supporter explained to me that the democratic party made them vote for Bush I'd be a multi-millionaire and probably voting for my tax cuts too. But I hope I'd have the decency to stand up for my vote and my candidate and not blame the party in opposition for making me do it.

Its a two party system. Bush has shown us, if we needed to have it drawn with pictures and bloody handprints, that it really, really, really, makes a difference which party you pick. Picking Bush in 2004, if that is what you did, was an affirmative choice. Voting for Bush was voting for all his choices, mistakes, and misrule.

But I really, really, love the excuse that you thought he was lying about the compassionate stuff. Because I, myself, usually try to pick the candidate who seems like he's trying to actually sell his real policies, not just dupe the rubes. I can see I've been using the wrong metric all these years.

Kate G.

[Guru]

I object to calling Andrew Sullivan an honest conservative. Back in 2000 he wrote that it was OK to lie if that's what it took to get a small government conservative into power.

Daniel Davies has pointed out that the only reasonable thing to do about a known liar is to stop listening to him/her. Period. Subtracting out 20% or dividing by the square root of pi is not going to help. Since Sullivan, by his own admission, regards lying as acceptable practice in an acceptable cause, I say ignore him.

[anne]

Kate says it all, as always, here I was through my river run thinking how to sneer at Bruce Bartlett without him living next door. Good grief, and he's a decent Republican.

[Guru]

I just followed the link provided by Mr. Bartlett. It charges that Bush believes in big government. It doesn't say anything about mendacity, malevelance, utter incompetance, or complete seperation from reality. Nor about contempt for human rights, the perversion of science in the service of the nutcase religious right, or the politicization of justice. Saying this "nailed" Bush is might be funny if the consequences of Bush's coming to power didn't include so many dead people.

Moreover, the critique Crane did make relied on the "Original Intent" view of the Constitution. I hold this view to be anathama.

We don't live under the same Constitution that was written in 1789; the Civil War and the Depression each profoundly altered it. In the first case this was reflected in amendments that the Supreme Court largely interpreted out of existance in some of the vilest opinions in history. In the second one or more amendments would have been passed had the Supreme Court not suddenly discovered that the Federal Government had had the power and the responsibility to regulate the economy, without anyone noticing, since the 18th century.

Claiming that these constitutional moments never happened or had no effect is something only someone with an Illegitimate agenda could even consider.

[Guru]

Kate: well said. It's amazing how much of what people say is really what they mean. Albeit the "compassionate" part is a counterexample. But on the whole, taking someone at their word is usually the best way to evaluate them.

[Jacob T. Levy]

What about people who started as the Class of 2000 as described, but then backslid 2001-03?

[Bernard Yomtov]

Go, Kate!!!

As members of these various classes distance themselves from Bush, I think they need to explain why anyone should trust their political judgment ever again.

I'm with John:

"The role of the sane conservatives in this will be to sit in the back of the room with paper bags over their heads and their hands folded quietly on their laps."

If they do that I might do them the courtesy of paying attention to what they say around 2020 or so.

[Ereshkigal]

Doesn't former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill belong on the list somewhere?

Georgie Anne Geyer defected long ago from the conned Cons. (The link in her name goes to an essay she wrote for The American Conservative back in January 2003, although I seem to remember her independence emerging earlier than that date.)

--oops-- preview show no link, so here's the Geyer link:

http://www.amconmag.com/01_13_03/geyer7.html

[sglover]

Those people in the classes from 2003 on are demonstrably too goddam stupid or slimy to be the worthy intellectual adversaries that you want.

[M. carey]

Kate G. sure knows her stuff. You go, girl!

[David Lloyd-Jones]

Look, it's really really simple: the Republican Party has become dominated by people who do not understand what America is all about, and whenever they get a glimpse of it, they're agin' it.

Maybe they watched too much television when they were kids, so "See the USA in your Chevrolet" is what they think it's all about. Through the civil rights revolution maybe they were at some soda fountain someplace, one that SNCC hadn't found yet.

They are scum. They are subversives. They are traitors. Their party is not a party, it is a conspiracy to destroy.

America needs a conservative party: let's say a Whig party. Schwartznegger and Bloomberg would be reasonable figureheads. Peggy Noonan when she was younger might have been a member, though today she has clearly gone over to the subversive camp. Secretary Powell would be an ideal member.

One of my grudgingly granted heroes, George Shultz, "Reaganism with a human face," would be one of the pack.

What's clear, however, is that almost nobody in the present Republican pantheon would qualify.

Newt Gingrich would turn up to apply, muttering "Alvin Toffler, new, new, Al Toffler, initiative" under his breath. On examination he would be found to be your typical 21st Century Republican, bought and paid for by the local mill owner.

[Nathan]

Stephen Bainbridge, class of 2005

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/08/what_might_have_1.html

[PSP]

Any conservative distancing themself from Bush because Bush isn't conservative enough, isn't an honest conservative and may not be bright either.

[bigTom]

Pat Buchanen. He's about the only pundit that I think worth listening to. He can usually take off his conservative hat, the see/tell it like it is. He has adamantly been against The Iraq excellent adventure from before the start -and is against bombing Iran.
So he seems to be honest, and smart, and (mostly) able to remove the ideological blinders. Just can't get himself to come clean and disavow the party.

[Alex]

BTW, it's well worth finding the points on which you agree with the HCs and the HCs disagree with the DhCs (Dishonest Conservatives) - so you and the HCs get a chance of putting them into effect, both of you get points for being adult, the crazies are forced to demonstrate their craziness ever more publicly and dramatically, and zer Republican Party as we know it is torn apart by its own internal contradictions...

[Roger Bigod]

None of them are Shrill. Making allowances for age and vocal ability some might be considered shrill honoris causas (DiIulio, Clarke, O'Neill, perhaps Scowcroft). But most of them are still in denial. Sullivan is especially disappointing, given the bitchiness and spite we know he's capable of.

[Count Cant]

on Zizek's trilemma--

formally, it's just a variation on the anti-theistic problem of evil.

God cannot be all three of
omnipotent
omniscient
omnibenevolent.

then fill in details as Zizek does.

[Thomas Blankenhorn]

Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer, served as deputy attorney general under Reagan, and writes Op-Ed columns for the Washington Times. He belongs somewhere between the classes of 2004 and 2006.

In May 2004, he lambasted the Bush Administration -- in a conservative newspaper no less -- for having screwed up Iraq [1]. This places him squarely inside the reality-based community. But apparently Fein did not support John Kerry. He barely commented about him publically at all, and what little he did say was dismissive. (An originalist in constitutional jurisprudence, Fein didn't like the kind of federal judges Kerry had promised to appoint.) This makes Fein an uncertain candidate, but still a candidate, for the class of 2004.

In 2006, Bruce Fein delivered a congressional testimony favoring Congressional censure of George Bush "for seeking to cripple the Constitution’s checks and balances and political accountability by secretly authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens in the United States in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and misleading the public about the secret surveillance program. "[2].

If Fein's Op-Eds from 2004 don't make him an honest conservative (and personally I think they do), this piece of testimony certainly places him in the class of 2006. Fein has generally escaped the attention of intelligent liberal bloggers -- perhaps because he writes for the newspaper of a right-wing cult leader. I find this unfortunate, as much as I understand how offputting the Washington Times can be to a liberal reader.

[1] http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040503-085955-8747r.htm

[2] http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1841&wit_id=5201

[johne]

Wouldn't Kevin P. Phillips, the Nixon-era GOP strategist who now calls himself an independent, be the valedictorian of the class of 2000? I remember him publicly and repeatedly expressing doubts about Bush on that era's NPR.

[elliottg]

Since it was only Kerry or Bush on offer in 2004, noone can defend themselves by saying I would have voted for some mythical 3rd choice. The trilemma started in Florida 2000 where if one claimed that Bush was legitimate you were being dishonest or hypocritical. It's not worth dissecting the point at which they turned away from the result out of disgust because they have not repented the basic dishonesty, hypocrisy, or idiocy that got them Bush in the first place. It means every single one of them will make the same choice under similar circumstances in the future. Many proudly proclaim that fact.

[Dan]

"Pat Buchanen[sic]. He's about the only pundit that I think worth listening to."

Pat Buchanan is a representative of the nativist/racist wing of the Republican party with no business in civilized discourse whatsoever, save to be held in contempt by decent people. His position on the Iraq war does not excuse him for a lifetime of espousing barely concealed racist views that have hardly been tempered by time (c.f. State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America.) Bill Buckley wrote a famous essay concluding that Buchanan was an anti-semite. But the late-great Molly Ivins probably summed it up best with her comment on his 1992 RNC keynote address, "[that it] probably sounded better in the original German."

[Tod McAvoy]

I need to nominate John Dean as an honest conservative.

It was either 2003 or early '04 that he published "Worse than Watergate". And he's taken another very effective book-length swipe since.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Pat Buchanan is so racist that even non-honest conservatives put him out of the Republican Party.

[mw]

What a great list. Although my blog ( a mere yearling) does not measure up to these luminaries, I'll proudly include myself in the class of 2003, as I supported Kerry on the strength of Niskanen's call for divided government. My blog was advocating for a Democratic Congress in 2006 for the same reason. Now it gets interesting. There is no way for the Dems to lose either house in 2008. The only way to maintain divided government, is to elect a Republican president in 2008. Unfortunately, the Republicans seem hell bent on self immolation. My only hope for the GOP and the conservative cause is for a true Anti-War Conservative like Chuck Hagel to get the nomination. I am not holding my breath.

[Jon Pennington]

Scott McConnell, Class of 2004

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

[Bruce Webb]

On Bartlett

"I'm not familiar enough with your ouevre to know whether you came for the tax cuts and stayed for the bigotry or vice versa"

Well that is clear. Bartlett quite literally wrote the case for tax cuts: Reaganomics-Supply side economics in action
http://www.amazon.com/Reaganomics-Supply-side-economics-Bruce-Bartlett/dp/0688011829
(He now explains that most of it was actually written before Reagan was elected, which means it is a flat out piece of campaign material and not properly analysis at all).

Bartlett is a very clever, well written Republican operative who disguises himself as an objective economist. His new blog is very enlightening in showing this. Take his comments on immigration. There is not a single economic argument to be seen, instead:

"The brilliant Heather MacDonald well articulates my principal opposition to the immigration bill: the delusion that it will help Republicans if they help pass it or hurt them if they oppose it. This is total insanity. More Hispanic voters will inevitably mean more Democratic voters. Heather explains here:"

And this is pretty clear. Nope the problem isn't $100 billion a year for wars of choice. The problem is assisting seniors with their drug costs:

"In recent posts, I have been talking about tipping points that turned many conservatives against George W. Bush. For me, it was the massively expensive Medicare drug benefit;"

I guess it depends on your definition of "honest conservative". If you mean "cut taxes on capital at all costs while rolling back all vestiges of the New Deal" then Bartlett's your guy. Just don't imagine that straightforward data analysis is going to trump preconceived policy ends.

[josh bivens]

serious question - why are we sure that Richard Clarke is/was conservative?

i thought he was more of a career civil servant who had served both parties.

there wasn't anything i remember from his book that signalled to me that he was either particularly conservative or not.

but, i'm more than willing to concede i don't know much about him, i'm mostly just curious.

[John Emerson]

Steve, just watch Lieberman and do what he does. Speaking for myself, I don't think that Democrats should make any concessions to keep the Scoop Jackson Democrats on board.

[David]

Jim Webb. Honest conservatives should have switched parties.

[Kate G.]

Yeah, when a serious blog piece came out about who scoop jackson really was I discovered that there was no way I wanted my party tainted with those guys. Lieberman is the literal tail end of the scoop jackson types and we don't need any more of him in the party, thanks.

Kate
G.

[Tim F]

It surprises me that nobody has brought up these three bloggers:

John Cole, class of abu Ghraib.
http://www.balloon-juice.com

The Commissar, don't know exactly when.
http://www.acepilots.com/mt/

von at Obsidian Wings, also not sure.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/

[neil]

John Cole of Balloon Juice is in the Class of 2005 but I don't know if he even considers himself a conservative any more.

[neil]

Christ, Tim beat me while I was being toyed with by the captcha.

[Garamond12]

Andrew Bacevich, Class of 2002?

[Tim F]

I should correct myself to say, like neil did, that John Cole didn't fully jump ship until Schiavo in 2005.

[anne]

Another morning, I learned that 40% of returning soldiers from Iraq will suffer psychological illness; I already knew that 18% of returned soldiers have suffered a traumatic brain injury. We are busy surging insuring yet more tours of duty and longer tours of duty, confronting a hell that need never have been and need not be confronted now but that we are confronting no matter the cost.

No wonder I'm a conservative.

[anne]

Cost of Iraq, what cost of Iraq? When Linda Bilmes wrote that military data showed more than 50,000 non-fatal casualties in Iraq by January of this year, an Assistant Secretary of Defense called to the Dean of Harvard's Kennedy school to complain and finding out where the data was available the data was changed to less than 22,000 non-fatal casualties. Poof, a better war and occupation.

No wonder I'm a conservative.

[anne]

Still, there really is a cost of war and occupation, no matter the data. We learn then that the defense department has turned to making photographers sign an agreement that in order to photograph a wounded soldier the photographer must have gained written permission from the soldier before the wounding to be photographed if wounded.

No wonder I'm a conservative.

[anne]

A war was fought to protect America from Iraq, which would be a bizarre notion even if on March 17, 2003 the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency had not reported to the United Nations that continuing intrusive inspections had shown no suggestions of an Iraqi atomic weapons program. Then, having fought a war to protect America from a treat that did not exist, Iraq was occupied by America because, well, because....

No wonder I'm a conservative.

[anne]

There we have it, a war that was never necessary and was we were told by selected University of Chicago-ans supposed to be costless, a lunatic occupation of Iraq complete with an American Viceroy to show off what a democratic military occuption really could be if only we had a Viceroy in charge, and after occupying Iraq longer than the time over which we fought a World War we find the answer to a need for peace is, well, surging and we are surging.

No wonder I'm a conservative.

[Eric Martin]

I'd probably add Greg Djerejian to the Class of 2006. I can't recall exactly the point of conversion, but I'm pretty sure he graduated.

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/

[Roger Bigod]

I hate to sound like a purist or something, but how many of these people have really changed their minds about anything? Sometimes an apparent capitulation is just a short-term tactical maneuver (cf. Homer, Iliad of).

[anne]

Tell me when Congressional Republicans, tell me when conservatives, give a darn, care at all about the lunatic tragedy of the war in and occupation of Iraq; tell me when conservatives stop vicious attacks on those who wish for peace, on those who would leave Iraq completely and immediately; tell me when conservatives care to work to take American soldiers from Iraq, not a few American soldiers and not in 50 years but all and now, and I will care a fig for conservatism.

[Kate G]

Steven Rogers,

Please explain to me how Lieberman and Webb are at all the same creature? Lieberman is a ocnservative democrat--by which he means he is a conservative who runs as a democrat and holds a democrat's seat while pumping up conservative economic and military causes and attacking actual democrats and progressives as not merely wrong (by his lights) but unamerican. he does this for the benefit of Israel and his many corporate sponsers.
Webb was sec. navy under reagan and extremely angry post vietnam about democrats and progressives but he is a populist with a strongly progressive political and economic program. He couldn't be further from Lieberman in terms of his current policy prescriptions and his view of what is good for this country.

Sure, there's room for Webb in the Democratic party. We've always been a big tent party. But there isn't room for lieberman because he is not just "outside pissing in" he's pissing all over the damn tent at this point.

In addition, I don't think that "centrist" dems are what you claim they are. I don't think they are "in the center" of the country and I don' tthink that their "centrism" means that they have some kind of healthy, middle of the road, on the one hand/on the other hand viewpoint. People who could vote republican or could vote democratic are actually people with very little understanding of how politics gets done in this country. They are people who don't understand that the two parties are actually different--composed of different poeple with different histories and different ideas about government and society.

A person who doesn't grasp that and thinks that they can vote republican for the family values and not end up with Terri Schiavo and the rapists bill of rights on abortion are simply delusional. People who think they can vote for lower taxes in a time of war and not end up with a huge debt are simply delusional. People who think that they can vote for one of the most pig ignorant individuals ever to be spat out from our centers of higher learning and get someone capable of dealing with the great tragedies and struggles of our world empire are simply delusional.

If they are not delusional, they are at best deeply illinformed. As we know from the last few years of work on such people they are usually low information voters who vote on personality and very, very, rarely grasp policy issues. Another thing they vote on is "spite" as in "this party doesn't want me! wah! I'll vote for the other guys." I am sick and tired of hearing about how "the party" does or doesn't want your vote. How you do or don't feel welcome. You know, women have had to vote for male candidates since we got the vote. Jews have had to vote for Christian candidates whose leaders tell us we are going to hell. Blacks have had to vote for white candidates who wouldn't be seen on a platform with them. Poor people are granted the chance to vote for rich people with startling frequency. Get over yourself. Vote for whoever you want and get the *&^% politics you deserve. But don't come crying to the Democratic party that they didn't make you feel welcome enough or they didnt' move over on whatever damn make or break item you thought you deserved to get. People in hell will want icewater. I want a bill passed *today* that make all people named "Kate G." queen of the universe. But its not exactly a flaw in the democratic party that the party isn't set up to give it to me.

Kate G.

[anne]

No; Kate is surely queen of the universe bill or no bill but Joe Lieberman is as Republican as can ever be and always has been.

[Bruce Bartlett]

My views are a bit more complex than Bruce Webb (whoever he is) suggests. Anyone who tries to influence opinion and writes in real time is going to make mistakes if only because of a lack of knowledge of facts that later become known. It's really easy in life to sit back and wait until all the facts are in and then claim to have seen the truth all along--although such truth was never communicated to anyone in a public forum. It's also easy to be a stopped clock--to oppose everything a president of the other party does, no matter what, and then claim superior knowledge and understanding on that basis when, inevitabley, some things go wrong. Many of such people exist on both sides. It takes a lot more effort to study the issues and offer an independent judgment when it might actually matter.

I have to say, I have decreasing respect for those who only populate the comments sections of blogs and never put themselves out there by writing something in a form that more than three people read. Take a stand. Show some guts. Stop hiding behind anonymous screen names. Show us who you are. And stop pretending to be know-it-alls.

[anne]

Kate, there's a price to be paid, you know....

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/Tragedy/hamlet/hamlet.3.4.html

1601

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
By William Shakespeare

Act III. Scene IV.

Elsinore. The Queen's closet.

HAMLET

Now, mother, what's the matter?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET

Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Why, how now, Hamlet!

HAMLET

What's the matter now?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Have you forgot me?

HAMLET

No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET

Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET

[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!

Makes a pass through the arras

LORD POLONIUS

[Behind] O, I am slain!

Falls and dies

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET

Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET

A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

As kill a king!

HAMLET

Ay, lady, 'twas my word.

Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

[anne]

"Stop hiding behind anonymous screen names."

Precisely what I was saying to Polonius only yesterday. Now, I have to go find Ophelia before....

[andres]

Pfeh. Shallow superficial sexist schmuck that I am, I won't vote for Kate G. as queen of the universe until I see her picture. But I am tempted to, though ;-)

But I do think we need to at least understand Steve Rogers and his angle. He sounds like an honest conservative who is distrustful of the potential anti-free market bent of the Democrats, but is repelled by the thinly veiled bigotry, and most recently, the non-veiled militarism of the Republicans. I sympathize with that and even know a few acquaintances who think in these terms.

The honest thing for such people to do (hint hint Steve) is to form their own political party, call it the New Republican party, or to join an already-existing third party such as the Libertarians (though I've written before that libertarianism has no future, for reasons I don't want to go into here).

Unfortunately, the US political system treats Third Parties like crap. So I don't blame Steve Rogers for complaining that neither main party fully represents their views. But you need to stop complaining and start thinking and acting on ways to reform US politics. Otherwise, lump it, as Kate impolitely suggested.

[texas dem]

Bruce Bartlett:

To your first paragraph, I agree.

On your second though, you are surely aware that not everyone is in a position to be a paid professional political commentator. Not only are there many people who are not in a position to get themselves published in normal venues, but there are even people who are not in a position to maintain a full-time, multi-year blog. For instance, they may be working, at other jobs. Therefore, there are many people with legitimate opinions and legitimate arguments and legitimate experience who nonetheless don't have a long printed record.

I realize that the absence of such a record makes it somewhat harder to tell a good-faith interlocutor from the kinds of people you describe in your first paragraph, but that's a problem that can generally be overcome and finessed. It does take some extra and sometimes annoying effort, but the only alternative is to shut out arguments from those without an established printed record. You would do that to your and our detriment.

[anne]

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/looking/chapter5.html

1872

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
By Lewis Carroll

Wool and Water

By this time it was getting light. 'The crow must have flown away, I think,' said Alice: 'I'm so glad it's gone. I thought it was the night coming on.'

'I wish I could manage to be glad!' the Queen said. 'Only I never can remember the rule. You must be very happy, living in this wood, and being glad whenever you like!'

'Only it is so very lonely here!' Alice said in a melancholy voice; and at the thought of her loneliness two large tears came rolling down her cheeks.

'Oh, don't go on like that!' cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands in despair. 'Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you've come to-day. Consider what o'clock it is. Consider anything, only don't cry!'

Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears. 'Can you keep from crying by considering things?' she asked.

'That's the way it's done,' the Queen said with great decision: 'nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to begin with—how old are you?'

'I'm seven and a half exactly.'

'You needn't say "exactually,"' the Queen remarked: 'I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.'

'I can't believe that!' said Alice.

'Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. 'Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one can't believe impossible things.'

'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast....

[Steven Rogers]

Kate g. wrtes: "Webb was sec. navy under reagan and extremely angry post vietnam about democrats and progressives but he is a populist with a strongly progressive political and economic program. He couldn't be further from Lieberman in terms of his current policy prescriptions and his view of what is good for this country."

He sounds like a solid Jacksonian Populist, a view I strongly sypathize with. But, if the Dems had a few more senate seats, would he still be welcome in the party, or would he be facing a very strong challenge in his next primary? The Dem tent is being stretched by the desire to stop the epublicans.

Kate G. writes: "Get over yourself. Vote for whoever you want and get the *&^% politics you deserve. But don't come crying to the Democratic party that they didn't make you feel welcome enough or they didnt' move over on whatever damn make or break item you thought you deserved to get."

Now, that attitude is what helped to create the "Reagan Democrats" in the first place. There was no make or break issue for me, but a large sustained dose of the sentiment you just expressed did the trick. Everybody has, or I hope they have, cored principles which they will nto compromise. But around the edges and fairly far in, sometimes you gotta make a deal. I did get over myself, in your words. I voted for Kerry in 2004 and straight down the democratic ticket to boot.

Andres, you put it better than I could. I'n not that conservative. I have taken a number of online tests that measure political leanings and usually score less than one point to the right of center. Some tests have one axis, some two, but my score is faily consistent.

Although, on the last test i scored .27 to the left. First time that has ever happened. perhaps I am being driven to Shrill Unholy madness? I feel this damnable itching on the sides of my neck...

[Kate G]

Dear Bruce Bartlett,

Pseudonymous is not Anonymous. Look it up. Nor are either categories synonymous with fictitious or ephemeral. Are you under the impression that the people who comment here "only inhabit the comment sections" of blogs? Are we figments of brad's imagination? Au contraire, I'd venture to guess (since I know more about you than you do about me) that most of us are precisely the kinds of people you might meet socially. We come from the same background economically and educationally if not politically or philosophically. Does that make it ok for me to have opinions? Because I'd be really, really, really grateful if you'd permit that.

Here's a clue--perhaps more of one than you want--it didn't take relentless opposition to the president qua bush to see where his mamothly stupid political and economic policies would take us. It took just a teeny-tiny bit of reading around on subjects as common and as easy to understand as Republican party politics and history. It wasn't hindsight, it was what we used to call foresight and mother-wit, combined with doing our homework. Not only do you not need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows but you don't need to be a licensed economist or political scientist to know just how stupid, narrow minded, and wrong headed the experts usually are--especially when their rationale is always profit or that wonderful mix of excuses and rationales that is the republican party:
free trade for me and not for thee
rule of law for the poor and not for the rich
torture as american as apple pie
add a dose of hysterical fear of castration and miscegenation with the brown hordes
throw in some of what Roy at Alicublog calls "god bothering" and a misreading of apocalyptic literature
and let's not leave out some good, old fashioned, fear of science and rationality

You've got the Republican party platform in a nutshell.

It doesn't take a professional to know all that, and more, before Bush even takes the world stage.

But as for risking anything? As a politically active american citizen I've risked far more than any right wing shill or world class prognosticator of economic entrails. In my world we are all paying for the sins of the bush team--in your world its just a temporary loss of face. But you go right on trying to explain to people how your monetary policies, tax cuts and other pro-corporate goals were served by the bombing of civilians in Iraq. Get back gto me when you can think of what it is.

Kate G.

[Kate G]

Steven Rogers,
You sound like a nice guy and I'm sure you have been driven to what Brad likes to call "shrill unholy madness" and the rest of us like to call common sense. Forgive me for sounding rude by you do realize that both congressional and senate seats are run for, and voted for, locally? Its true that the dems *nationally* need to win seats and its true that they run people locally to get those seats but a cursory glance at national democratic party history will reveal to you that no incumbent democratic senator *with the exception of lieberman* ever gets a serious party challenge at the primary level. And lieberman's challenge came about *againsgt the wishes* of the democratic party hierarchy and without any help from them??? And you do realize that webb essentially self nominated and was pushed by grassroots dems who looked at the man and not any liklihood that he would win--in fact he was considered quite the long shot against the incumbent Republican? So your point that the dems instrumentally took webb on board just to win the seat is kind of bizarre. It doesn't track with what actually happened which is way more important for your comfort level with the party--people like you, or people you identify with *moved left* or *moved center/progressive* because the *republican party* rejected and disgusted them.

You sound like a really nice guy and you should feel comfortable in the democratic party. But whether you do or you don't, you don't belong in the republican party as currently constituted. And you should feel proud of that. Because the fish has rotted from the head down and if you can find people whose policies and personal histories don't disgust you over there--well, you've got 28 percent of the country on your side, but its not the 28 percent that you might want to be associated with.

kate G.

[Grinderman]

Steve Chapman and Georgie Ann Geyer (he's sort of a libertarian and she's sort of a "Scoop Jackson Democrat"/paleocon). Both write for the Chicago Tribune.

Both parted ways with Bush about when the Iraq war started.

[Ken Houghton]

Scowcroft, e.g., said Early On that Iraq Was A Major Mistake. And got pilloried for it.

He may have publicly opposed the entire Administration starting in 2004, but he was opposing their Greatest Misses (to borrow from PE) long before then, and should be grandfathered accordingly.

Where do you plan to classify those who began opposing Shrub's professed "conservatism" as soon as the steel tariffs, but didn't go into crisis about the rest until it was a Clearly Demonstrable CF??

[peter angelo]

I too must take exception with Mr. Bartlett's getting on a soap box to encourage those adding their two cents to try their darndest to get on a watch list or a no fly list, or serially harassed.

That is what those who patriotically speak out have in store for themselves if they appear at a peace rally or sign a petition to air a civic grievance.

Many of us have spoke out in all sorts of forums, at least the ones we have avilable to us. I've sent and had published many letters to the editor, which will only get published around here if you provide your name, address and phone number.

The very first one was an indictment on this administration, and modern Republicanism for that matter, about the era of lowered expectations. Cited were many observations about how we were told not to expect much because this ain't your daddy's Bush. How did I do on that one?

Republicanism has become a faith, almost a cult for that matter, who ignore facts, scorn logic, think saying things louder and meaner somehow makes them more right, and would still vote for GWB even when mearly every indicator for our country was running counter to even conservative beliefs.

There's no place for true liberals in the Democratic Party and there is no place any more true conservatives in the neo-Republican party.

Oh yeah, Ron Paul is a straight talking conservative and that is why he is withering on the vine as a Republican presidential candidate, as is Gilmour, Huckabee, et al.

[Tom Maguire]

People who in 2002 said, "I supported Bush in 2000 and 2001, but 911 has unhinged the administration; it's detention and other policies are counterproductive; it needs to be opposed." Richard Clarke.
Why would Clarke, Terror Czar under Clinton, have supported Bush in 2000? Short answer - he didn't support him enough to actually vote for him over Gore:

"MR. RUSSERT: And we're back. Did you vote for George Bush in 2000?

MR. CLARKE: No, I did not.

MR. RUSSERT: You voted for Al Gore.

MR. CLARKE: Yes, I did."

From Meet The Press, Mar 28 2004
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4608698/

BTW, the tis the number one Google hit for " 'richard clarke' al gore 2000", so we are not talking extensive research here.

[Steven Rogers]

Kate G.,

I am a nice guy. I'm not a Republican, I just used to vote that way. Not any more. I am deeply, deeply distressed buy the way that dismissal of torture seems to have become a core feature of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates.

[PeeDee]

Driftglass calls this "Sudden Adult Onset 'Dubya Who?'-ism" Pity it's so little, so late.

[Leila Abu-Saba]

What about honest conservative military historians? I read Patrick Lang (Sic Semper Tyrannis), William S. Lind (On War Archive - he's so conservative, he actually believes the Muslims and the liberals are out to destroy American Civilization As We Know It) and Clifford Kiracofe (adjunct History faculty at VMI, former Congressional foreign relations adviser).

I don't have dates for when these guys turned "honest" however. Maybe I'll ask them. Lang for one will probably bark at me. Lind doesn't take email. Kiracofe isn't really a famous pundit or anything, just a military historian.

Somebody else already mentioned Bacevic; he's in this category. My heart goes out to him on the loss of his son in Iraq this year.

[Steve J.]

Well, Edmund Burke is dead so I'm siding with Hayek on this issue:

From "Why I am not a Conservative" in The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960):

Let me return, however, to the main point, which is the characteristic complacency of the conservative toward the action of established authority and his prime concern that this authority be not weakened rather than that its power be kept within bounds. This is difficult to reconcile with the preservation of liberty. In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule - not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them.[7]

7. I trust I shall be forgiven for repeating here the words in which on an earlier occasion I stated an important point: "The main merit of the individualism which [Adam Smith] and his contemporaries advocated is that it is a system under which bad men can do least harm. It is a social system which does not depend for its functioning on our finding good men for running it, or on all men becoming better than they now are, but which makes use of men in all their given variety and complexity, sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes intelligent and more often stupid." (Individualism and Economic Order [London and Chicago, 1948], p. 11).

[Steven Rogers]

Bacevic opposed the Iraq venture from the beginning.

[andres]

Steve J.:

Hayek is dead too, at the very least in the literal sense. And while he walks in the fields of Austrian Elysium, he is probably reflecting bitterly on why he has become an icon to conservatives even though he rejected conservatism as a political creed.

This is a punishment that he deserved, imo, because his ringing rejection of socialism was based on a fallacy--that of conflating socialism with unitary government authority. They are not the same, and socialists like Hugo Chavez who believe socialism can only be implemented by an all-powerful one-party government are also deluding themselves.

[me]

"socialists like Hugo Chavez who believe socialism can only be implemented by an all-powerful one-party government are also deluding themselves."
Wah? Where did you get that idea? CNN? They just regurgitate other press outlets uncritically, you know. Specifically the Venezuelan press in this case.

[Tyler Durden]

Offtopic- Kate G. I'm looking for someone who might like to contribute an opinion column for a website I'm putting together. You write powerfully, agressively, and intelligently... I'd love to see what you can do. Cobaltbluemoon@gmail.com

[andres]

me: I got that idea from my own (often inadequate) thinking processes, not from CNN, which I will not watch as long they continue to be a sounding board for a******s like Lou Dobbs. I have no doubt that some of the most prominent Venezuelan media outlets, especially the TV station currently in dispute, are biased in a strongly anti-Chavez direction. Often this is an unfair bias, though just as often the idiot deserves it. But the way to combat the bias is to change the rules of operation, not to give your enemies more ammunition by shutting the station down.

There are several ways the rules can be changed, but to go into them would take me too long here. Just think it through.

[Tybalt]

texas dem, sounding very reasonable, said to Bruce Bartlett:

I realize that the absence of such a record makes it somewhat harder to tell a good-faith interlocutor from the kinds of people you describe in your first paragraph, but that's a problem that can generally be overcome and finessed.

I'd actually posit that it's pretty easy, particularly in the environment we're discussing (comment boards on blogs) to tell a good-faith interlocutor from a "stopped clock". That is politeness and tact.

Invariably, in a forum such as this one, good-faith interlocutors (who are participating in debate and advancing discussion) conduct themselves with politeness and propriety. Those who insult, demean and shout rude slogans are instantly (*instantly*) recognizable as cranks, liars and buffoons.

[robert green]

the republican party has spent the past 40 years using the constitution as toilet paper in between running up massive deficits and continuing or losing major wars. it has foisted an endless array of ideology-first quality-second losers into positions of power, where they both could and indeed did create chaos and disaster. it has, for lo those many years, divorced itself from a results-based system of governance across the board. i suppose i could supply a list--i've certainly done so before elsewhere.

it starts with the embrace of the john birch society, maybe (or maybe the battle against the new deal), followed by the craziness of goldwater, the mendacity and criminality of nixon (and the anti-semitism and paranoia and on and on), the fecklessness and criminality-by-proxy of ford (whose decision to pardon nixon remains one of america's low points), the criminality of reagan--perhaps better described as the detachment of reagan from the reality of the criminals who he brought into governance, the same in re bush senior (serial liar about iran-contra, a malfeasance trifecta of constitution destroying, money-laundering, and terrorist enabling), straight through the total-disconnect-from-anything like-rational-and-sane-behavior of gingrich et al.

if, in 2000, yours was an ideology that still allowed for the possibility of voting for bush, you were either stupid, or, as in the case of most of the names mooted here, too venal or greedy or vicious or racist or generally self-deluded. that we are supposed to affix virtue to coming around to reality circa 2004 about bush jr., a man so manifestly underqualified and undeserving to lead so great a country as ours, is...

i don't know. i'm at a loss. wtf is wrong with delong? too many years kissing ass in DC?

[Ryan W.]

Tim of Random Observations.
A conservative who tends to blast a lot of other conservatives. Supports the Iraq war, but gives good support for why he does.

http://tim.2wgroup.com/blog/

[lovable liberal]

"I have to say, I have decreasing respect for those who only populate the comments sections of blogs and never put themselves out there by writing something in a form that more than three people read. Take a stand. Show some guts. Stop hiding behind anonymous screen names. Show us who you are. And stop pretending to be know-it-alls."

Waaah! If you can't beat our arguments, an ad hominem will have to do, well-spiced with aggrieved elitism at our poaching on your pundit's unearned preserve.

Screen names? C'mon, graduate from AOL.

We're pretending to be know-it-alls? Sheesh.

Now for substance in response to your lack of it: I suppose you have decreasing respect for Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Paine, etc. They didn't sign their given names either. Probably wanted to avoid the useless ad hominems of defensive frauds like you.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Good list.

There are plenty of honest conservatives, they are going to work every day and don't have time to be talking heads or bloggers.

The hysterics and bitterness from a few of the lefty commenters here go a long way toward explaining the self-destructiveness of the liberals (which explains how Dubya was elected twice).

[dilbert dogbert]

I think this is a project for after the first year of the new democratic party president's term. It is too early to find any "honest conservatives" or even define that term.

[Craig Nelson]

For an honest and perceptibly perceptive conservative, how about Norman Orenstein at AEI? His book, "The Broken Branch", focuses on the crucial structural flaw which abetted instead of restraining the Rove-Cheney-Bush monster. A LATimes op-ed of his on this point can be found at http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.24945/pub_detail.asp .

If one is willing to allow libertarians to pass as conservatives, there are some extremely unhappy people at the Cato Institute. Some are said to be intelligent.

I'll second John Dean's nomination. He's not going to get a WaPo or NYT column which seems like a good selection filter. Andrew Sullivan might.

[Barry]

"von at Obsidian Wings, also not sure. "
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/

Posted by: Tim F

"I hate to sound like a purist or something, but how many of these people have really changed their minds about anything? Sometimes an apparent capitulation is just a short-term tactical maneuver (cf. Homer, Iliad of)."

Posted by: Roger Bigod

On a recent post, Von said that one of the Democratic candidates would make him flee the country if they were to be elected. Considering that he hasn't said that after seven years of Bush's horrors, Von should be placed in the category of 'dishonest denier'.

[dilbert dogbert]

Rusty,
The proper term is "SHRILL" not hysterical and bitter.

[commie atheist]

I know I'm a little late to the party here, but, Kate G: Will you marry me?

[Lockwood]

I read over about the first quarter to third of the comments and didn't see John Dean mentioned. Dean was the person who made it clear to me that conservatism and modern Republicanism are two very different things. And (I've lent his books out, so I have to paraphrase) has said that anyone who cares about the country should not vote for Republicans for national-level offices: they have proved that they are unwilling and unable to govern responsibly. I heartily recommned his Bush-Era trilogy, "Worse than Watergate," "Conservatives Without Conscience," and "Broken Government," to anyone, liberal or conservative, who is trying to figure out what's going on in this country, or trying to figure out why so many are oblivious to the fact that the country is in the process of plummeting over a cliff. I think "Worse than Watergate" came out summer of '04, but I think he started speaking out about dubya and modern Republicanism well before that.