How do you get conservatives to face reality? You beat the fuck out of them, of course

[MrScorpio]

It's quite clear that their impending defeat this coming November has forced them to take a long, hard look in the mirror and reexamine the last near-decade of total Republican control.

After reading this puppy, I get the feeling that we're doing them a BIIIGGG favor by putting them out of their misery. Even though they still have a way to go, they are very close to seeing what have they wrought.

From The American Conservative Magazine, enjoy:

October 06, 2008 Issue
Copyright © 2008 The American Conservative

An Open Letter to Sarah Palin

By TAC Editors

To: Gov. Sarah Palin
From: TAC Editors
Re: What Your Tutors Aren’t Telling You

Congratulations on being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It’s an honor, if a dubious one. As you know, conservatives have reservations about McCain. To your credit, they have few such concerns about you.

You’ve given new life to a party whose brand was bankrupt. You’ve energized a campaign that was embarrassing its own partisans. Across America, crowds flock to see you—not that old man who barely wheezed his way through the primaries. If John McCain wins, he will owe you, as the guy in the undisclosed location says, “Big time.”

Wonder why Middle America finds you irresistible? Maybe they’re big Tina Fey fans. More likely, you remind them of the conservative values they feared lost: faith, family, independence. This impression owes more to who you are than what you’ve done. But at least you keep Obama from cornering the market on hope. Conservatives have faith in you. Don’t fail them as George W. Bush has.

You see what happened: the president’s entire domestic agenda collapsed under the weight of his failed foreign policy. Social Security reform stalled. Pro-lifers became political orphans. And whatever gains Bush’s tax cuts secured were wiped out by record spending. Everything was subordinated to the war on terror.

Conservatives grasping for something to commend give the president points for his judicial picks. But he would have much preferred justices like Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers—toadies whose top qualification was their willingness to give the executive more power.

The party that championed the things you prize—individual liberty, fiscal restraint, and a strong defense—has trampled civil rights, pushed us to the brink of insolvency, and broken our Armed Forces. After eight years of Bush, even diehard Republicans are glad to see him go. You might have noticed the elephant not in the room in St. Paul.

Clip

Here’s a hint: don’t believe everything you read in the papers, especially if the byline is Kristol or Krauthammer. Russia is not an expansionist, ideological empire. It’s a traditional, semi-authoritarian great power intent on preserving its influence in its own backyard and its prestige on the world stage. That’s why Russia intercedes in the domestic disputes of unruly states on its periphery. Putin balks at Poland hosting our antimissile systems for the same reason we would bristle at Cuba or Mexico receiving Chinese antitank missiles.

With more validity, some of the people whispering in your ear tell you that Moscow wants to corner the European markets for oil and natural gas. And what nefarious end does Putin have in mind? Raising prices and reinforcing Moscow’s political clout, not with nuclear blackmail but with good, old-fashioned economic power. We have plenty of that ourselves (or at least we used to). Putin, far from being a totalitarian ideologue, is an economic nationalist, as the leaders of great powers traditionally have been.

Then there’s the Middle East, where only American arms (and lives) can prevent little Israel from being swept into the sea by Muslim hordes. Surely that’s what AIPAC told you that night you left Phyllis cooling her heels. But again, it isn’t true. Israel has nuclear weapons, for one thing, and can outfight her neighbors even without resort to atom bombs. Israel’s problem isn’t external threat so much as internal security and demographics. When the Jewish state was founded, tens of thousands of Palestinians—Christians as well as Muslims—lost their homes. Palestine was no wide-open Alaskan frontier: when the newcomers moved in, Arabs were moved out, often by force. Terrorism didn’t come to the region with Hamas or Hezbollah; decades earlier groups like the Stern Gang and Irgun used violence to clear the way for Israel’s creation. Nor was Palestinian Authority leader Yassar Arafat the first terrorist to lead a state in the Holy Land. Israeli Prime Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir had unclean hands as well.

Clip

You surely see that the Bush policies have come to a dead end. If the millions poised to vote for you wanted four more years, the president’s approval rating wouldn’t be 25 percent. This isn’t because Republicans dislike Bush personally or disagree with his positions on energy and taxes. It’s because they know that his main legacy—the Iraq War—is a disaster.

Thankfully, they don’t think you’re like him. They see in you someone like themselves—a patriot and a mother. The Middle Americans waiting hours to hear you speak don’t want the United States to be defeated, and they don’t want Iraq to be a haven for al-Qaeda—something it never was before the invasion. They are pleased that the surge has made it more possible to leave because they don’t want to send their boys back for a third or fourth tour. They want America to come home—not because she’s weak but because she’s wise. They hope that you are, too.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/oct/06/00008/

I've got a great idea.

Let's beat these guys ALL THE TIME. That way they stay firmly rooted in REALITY.

[Cary]

1. Sarah Palin representing their hope is reality?

I just have two words that come to mind:

Dan Quayle.

[MrScorpio]

3. I have the feeling that they're going to put 2 and 2 together

Her fuck-ups are going to sink in very soon

[Demeter]

4. And I Was Thinking "Don Quixote!"

Same initials....

They STILL can't handle reality--if they could, they would realize that Sarah Palin's headed for prison, not the White House.

[ixion]

2. yeah, too bad Palin doesn't read anything but fairy tales

there's sound advice for her there, but I'm sure that will go unread by the lipstick-caked moose skinner.

[frogcycle]

5. actually a pretty good assessment

The "conservative" movement of today has nothing whatsoever to do with what the word meant fifty years ago.

The play "The Music Man" is a good illustration. A small town with its traditions - fears someone opening a pool hall because that will attract a "bad element." Back then the "bad element" included pretty much every minority, plus motorcycle riders, "bohemians"... anyone who didn't have a crewcut and live on Elm Street behind a picket fence. That is the image this article suggests people are pining for - not the PNAC version of "conservatism" that promotes big business oligarchy and pre-emptive wars.

To the extent that miss runner-up appeals to that, dropping her "g's" and saying "you betcha" and bragging about how small Wasila is, she is comforting to those who just want all the complications of the modern-day world to go away.

But as Dorothy said to Toto, "we're not in Kansas any more."

Nostalgia for old cars and 50's/60's music is one thing; thinking we can put our heads in the sand and elect Toto president and everything will be alright is another. Palin's popularity has nothing whatsoever to do with her. People have seen Obama's huge crowds, his "rock star" appeal, and they are clinging to their alternative. She could be a cardboard cutout and they'd cheer for her.

[NC_Nurse]

6. You betcha!

;-)