Do Bush-lovers have a political ideology?

surrender · Feb 13, 2006

Read this post and think of the eerie parallels to some prominent conservative posters on this forum

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/do-bush-followers-have-political.html

Do Bush followers have a political ideology?

Alexandra von Maltzan at All Things Beautiful has written a long and somewhat personal post expressing her "disappointment" in my blogging and in my political views. Scott "Big Trunk" Johnson at Powerline, in a post entitled "One Beautiful Thing," has announced that he "greatly enjoyed" her "disquisitions" (meaning her post about my blogging and my political views).

Reading Alexandra’s post, I learn that I have "sold out" due to my "blind loyalty to the liberal cause of sabotaging the Administartion (sic) with whatever means available at any given time." I’m "now simply dancing to the tune of the Daily Kos audience, and it is very disappointing to watch." Her primary argument in support of this theory is that I have "attempted to pulverize the talented John Hinderaker and Jonah Goldberg," that I hold "the brilliant Jeff Goldstein" to a "higher moral standard," and that I say unkind things about the "relentlessly talented and courageous Michelle Malkin." Seriously. That's because my "posts have become a barrage of personal attacks on conservative bloggers which were not present pre-love affair with Daily Kos, Atrios, Digby and Crooks and Liars ."

I want to leave the personal issues to the side and examine a few of the substantive issues raised (unintentionally) by Alexandra’s post. It used to be the case that in order to be considered a "liberal" or someone "of the Left," one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, "judicial activism," hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a "liberal," such views are no longer necessary.

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based. And the more one criticizes him, by definition, the more "liberal" one is. Whether one is a "liberal" -- or, for that matter, a "conservative" -- is now no longer a function of one’s actual political views, but is a function purely of one’s personal loyalty to George Bush.

One can see this principle at work most illustratively in how Bush followers talk about Andrew Sullivan. In the couple of years after 9/11, Bush followers revered Sullivan, as he stood loyally behind Bush, providing the rhetorical justifications for almost every Bush action. And even prior to the Bush Administration, Sullivan was a fully accepted member of the conservative circle. Nobody questioned the bona fides of his conservative credentials because he ascribed to the conservative view on almost every significant political issue.

Despite not having changed his views on very many, if any, of those issues, Sullivan is now frequently called a "liberal" (at best) when he is talked about by Bush followers. What has changed are not his political views or ideological orientation. Instead, he no longer instinctively and blindly praises George Bush, but periodically, even frequently, criticizes Bush. By definition, then, he is no longer a "conservative." As Sullivan put it:

OFF THE RESERVATION": Brent Bozell says I'm no "conservative." Label debates are silly. But I should say, for the record, that I favor the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been horrified by the incompetence of the occupation, but have been trying to make constructive arguments for how to win for quite a while now. Yes, I oppose the torture and abuse of military detainees. I'm a little stunned that this is now something that now requires one to be seen as a "liberal."

I support almost all of Bush's tax cuts (I support the estate tax) but also believe in balanced budgets and spending restraint (heretic!); I oppose affirmative action; I oppose hate crime laws; I respect John Kerry's military service; I believe all abortion is morally wrong and that Roe vs Wade was dreadful constitutional law (but I do favor legal first trimester abortions); I support states' rights, especially in social policy, such as marriage; I oppose the expansion of the welfare state, as in the Medicare prescription drug plan; I supported John Roberts' nomination and Sam Alito's; I believe in a firm separation of religion and politics, but I certainly take faith seriously and wrestle with my own. As regular readers know, I'm no fan of the far left. At some point, I have endorsed every single Republican president in my adult life.

All of that makes me a "liberal." Imagine what it now takes to be a "conservative" in Brent Bozell's eyes.

What it takes to make someone a "conservative" in Bozell's eyes is the same as what is required in the eyes of all Bush followers -- a willingness to support Bush's actions because they are the actions of George Bush.

We see the same thing happening to hard-core conservative Bob Barr due to his criticism of Bush's violations of FISA . Similarly, the minute a Senator with years of conservatism behind them deviates from a Bush decree on a single issue, they are no longer "conservative." George Voinovich became a "liberal" the minute he refused to support John Bolton’s nomination; John Sununu is now "liberal" because he did not favor immediate renewal of every single provision of the Patriot Act which Bush demanded, and Senators like Chuck Hagel and John McCain long ago gave up any "conservative" status because of their insistence on forming opinions that occasionally deviate from the decrees from the White House.

People who self-identify as "conservatives" and have always been considered to be conservatives become liberal heathens the moment they dissent, even on the most non-ideological grounds, from a Bush decree. That’s because "conservatism" is now a term used to describe personal loyalty to the leader (just as "liberal" is used to describe disloyalty to that leader), and no longer refers to a set of beliefs about government.

That "conservatism" has come to mean "loyalty to George Bush" is particularly ironic given how truly un-conservative the Administration is. It is not only the obvious (though significant) explosion of deficit spending under this Administration – and that explosion has occurred far beyond military or 9/11-related spending and extends into almost all arenas of domestic programs as well. Far beyond that is the fact that the core, defining attributes of political conservatism could not be any more foreign to the world view of the Bush follower.

As much as any policy prescriptions, conservatism has always been based, more than anything else, on a fundamental distrust of the power of the federal government and a corresponding belief that that power ought to be as restrained as possible, particularly when it comes to its application by the Government to American citizens. It was that deeply rooted distrust that led to conservatives’ vigorous advocacy of states’ rights over centralized power in the federal government, accompanied by demands that the intrusion of the Federal Government in the lives of American citizens be minimized.

Is there anything more antithetical to that ethos than the rabid, power-hungry appetites of Bush followers? There is not an iota of distrust of the Federal Government among them. Quite the contrary. Whereas distrust of the government was quite recently a hallmark of conservatism, expressing distrust of George Bush and the expansive governmental powers he is pursuing subjects one to accusations of being a leftist, subversive loon.

Indeed, as many Bush followers themselves admit, the central belief of the Bush follower's "conservatism" is no longer one that ascribes to a limited federal government -- but is precisely that there ought to be no limits on the powers claimed by Bush precisely because we trust him, and we trust in him absolutely. He wants to protect us and do good. He is not our enemy but our protector. And there is no reason to entertain suspicions or distrust of him or his motives because he is Good.

We need no oversight of the Federal Government’s eavesdropping powers because we trust Bush to eavesdrop in secret for the Good. We need no judicial review of Bush’s decrees regarding who is an "enemy combatant" and who can be detained indefinitely with no due process because we trust Bush to know who is bad and who deserves this. We need no restraints from Congress on Bush’s ability to exercise war powers, even against American citizens on U.S. soil, because we trust Bush to exercise these powers for our own good.

The blind faith placed in the Federal Government, and particularly in our Commander-in-Chief, by the contemporary "conservative" is the very opposite of all that which conservatism has stood for for the last four decades. The anti-government ethos espoused by Barry Goldwater and even Ronald Reagan is wholly unrecognizable in Bush followers, who – at least thus far – have discovered no limits on the powers that ought to be vested in George Bush to enable him to do good on behalf of all of us.

And in that regard, people like Michelle Malkin, John Hinderaker, Jonah Goldberg and Hugh Hewitt are not conservatives. They are authoritarian cultists. Their allegiance is not to any principles of government but to strong authority through a single leader.

It is hard to describe just how extreme these individuals are. Michelle Malkin is the Heroine of the Right Blogosphere, and she believes in concentration camps. As an avid reader of Michelle’s blog, I really believe that she would be in favor of setting up camps for Muslim-Americans and/or Arab-Americans similar to the ones we had for Japanese-Americans which she praises. Has anyone ever asked her that? Could someone? I don’t mean that she would favor interning them indefinitely - just for the next few decades while the war on terrorism is resolved.

And as excessive as the Bush Administration’s measures have been thus far -- they overtly advocate the right to use war powers against American citizens on American soil even if Congress bans such measures by law -- I am quite certain that people like John Hinderaker, Jonah Goldberg and Jeff Goldstein, to name just a few, are prepared to support far, far more extreme measures than the ones which have been revealed thus far. And while I would not say this for Jeff or perhaps of Jonah, I believe quite firmly that there are no limits – none – that Hinderaker (or Malkin or Hewitt) would have in enthusiastically supporting George Bush no matter how extreme were the measures which he pursued.

We have heard for a long time that anger and other psychological and emotional factors drive the extreme elements on the Left, but that is (at least) equally true for the Bush extremists. The only difference happens to be that the Bush extremists control every major governmental institution in the country and the extremists on the Left control nothing other than the crusted agenda for the latest International A.N.S.W.E.R. meeting.

And the core emotions driving the Bush extremists are not hard to see. It is a driving rage and hatred – for liberals, for Muslims, for anyone who opposes George Bush. The rage and desire to destroy is palpable. When John Hinderaker removes those tightly-wound glasses and lets go of the death grip he maintains on the respectable-corporate-lawyer facade, these are the sentiments which are always stirring underneath:

You dumb ****, he didn't get access using a fake name, he used his real name. You lefties' concern for White House security is really touching, but you know what, you stupid *******, I think the Secret Service has it covered. Go crawl back into your hole, you stupid left-wing ****head. And don't bother us anymore. You have to have an IQ over 50 to correspond with us. You don't qualify, you stupid ****.

The rhetoric of Bush followers is routinely comprised of these sorts of sentiments dressed up in political language – accusations that domestic political opponents are subversives and traitors, that they ought to be imprisoned and hung, that we ought to drop nuclear bombs on countries which have committed the crime of housing large Muslim populations. These are not political sentiments, and they’re certainly not conservatives sentiments, but instead, are psychological desires finding a venting ground in a political movement.

It’s not an accident that Ann Coulter and her ongoing calls for violence against "liberals" (meaning anyone not in line behind George Bush) are so wildly popular among conservatives. It’s not some weird coincidence that the 5,000 people in attendance at the CPAC this last week erupted in "boisterous ovation" when she urged violence against "ragheads,’ nor is it an accident that her hateful, violence-inciting screeds -- accusing "liberals" of being not wrong, but "treasonous" -- become best-sellers. Ann Coulter has been advocating violence against liberals and other domestic political opponents for years, and she is a featured speaker at the most prestigious conservative events. Why would that be? It's because she is tapping into the primal, rather deranged rage which lies in the heart of many Bush followers. If that weren't driving the movement, she wouldn’t provoke the reactions and support that she does.

The combination here of rage and fear is potent and toxic. One of the principal benefits of the blogosphere -- with its daily posting and unedited expressions of thought -- is that it reveals one’s genuine underlying views in a much more honest and unadorned fashion than other venues of expression. For that reason, the true sentiments of bloggers often stand revealed for all to see.

And what I hear, first and foremost, from these Bush following corners is this, in quite a shrieking tone: "Oh, my God - there are all of these evil people trying to kill us, George Bush is doing what he can to save us, and these liberals don’t even care!!! They’re on their side and they deserve the same fate!!!" It doesn’t even sound like political argument; it sounds like a form of highly emotional mass theater masquerading as political debate. It really sounds like a personality cult. It is impervious to reasoned argument and the only attribute is loyalty to the leader. Whatever it is, it isn’t conservative.

This is one of the principal reasons I found the story yesterday of the DoJ’s criminal pursuit of the NSA leakers (including the Times) so serious. Fervent Bush followers have long been demanding that these leakers and the journalists involved in this disclosure be imprisoned, or worse. These demands are made despite the lack of any harm to our national security. They are motivated by one fact and one fact only – whoever disclosed the illegal NSA program harmed George Bush. And for that crime, no punishment is excessive.

If it now places one "on the Left" to oppose unrestrained power and invasiveness asserted by the Federal Government along with lawlessness on the part of our highest government officials, so be it. The rage-based reverence for The President as Commander-in-Chief -- and the creepy, blind faith vested in his goodness -- is not a movement I recognize as being political, conservative or even American.

A movement which has as its shining lights a woman who advocates the death of her political opponents, another woman who is a proponent of concentration camps, a magazine which advocates the imprisonment of journalists who expose government actions of dubious legality, all topped off by a President who believes he has the power to secretly engage in activities which the American people, through their Congress, have made it a crime to engage in, is a movement motivated by lots of different things. Political ideology isn't one of them.

UPDATE: For a glimpse of how actual conservatives quite recently used to think, one should read this article at FreeRepublic.com, which decries the dangerous loss of liberty and privacy as a result of the Clinton Administration's use of a "secret court" (something called the "FISA court") which actually enables the Federal Government to eavesdrop on American citizens! Worse -- much worse -- the judicial approval which the Government (used to) obtain for this eavesdropping is in secret, so we don't even know who is being eavesdropped on! How can we possibly trust the Government not to abuse this power if they can obtain warrants in secret?

Conservatives used to consider things like this to be quite disturbing and bad -- and the eavesdropping then was at least with judicial oversight. Now, George Bush is in office, and all of the distrust we used to have of the Federal Government exercising these powers has evaporated, because we trust in George Bush to do what is best for us. He should not just have those powers, but many more, and he should exercise all of them in secret, too, with no "interference" from the courts or Congress.

That is why I say that whatever else these Bush followers are, they are not conservative. (h/t Stand Strong and aarrgghh).
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surrender · Feb 13, 2006

Here's the follow-up which proves his point:

There are numerous replies around the blogosphere to my post yesterday regarding the various dynamics characterizing the behavior of Bush followers. I’m replying here to as many of the serious and/or commonly voiced responses as I can. If any of the bloggers who responded think I’m neglecting to address or reply to some important point, I hope they will let me know:

(1) Most (though not all) of the responses were quite heavy on name-calling and extremely light on substantive replies to the actual points in the post. More notable than the unsurprising fact that the post prompted lots of name-calling is the specific name-calling insults that were chosen. Almost invariably, bloggers told their readers that what I wrote can be disregarded because I’m just a "leftist" and a "lefty" and a "liberal" spewing forth the "KosHuff" party line.

According to Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse, for instance, my "writing is little more than a tired echo of what conservatives can read on a daily basis at Kos or any other lock-step lefty blog where Bush Derangement Syndrome reigns supreme." And at Little Green Footballs (more on it below), my post won the award for "Leftist Lie of the Day" and was held up as an example of "dishonest, ethically-challenged childish babbling that passes for leftist ‘debate’ in this modern age."

So, they label the argument and the person making it "leftist" and "liberal" and - presto! - no more need to address the arguments or consider its substance because it’s all been shooed away with one fell swoop of name-calling cliches.

I mention all of this because it illustrates what I think is an important point. I’ve been blogging for just over 3 months now. It’s almost certainly the case that the only views of mine that bloggers at LGF and RWNH know are, at most, my opposition to the Administration’s various theories entitling them to violate Congressional laws and my belief that the Administration manipulates terrorist threats for domestic political gain.

In other words, they don’t actually know my political views on most issues in controversy. All they know, at most, is that I am a critic of the Bush Administration’s approach to terrorism policies and the Administration's insistence that it need not abide by the law -- opposition which, in their eyes, is more than enough to qualify me as a "leftist" or "liberal" despite not knowing if I actually subscribe to liberal views on virtually any issue. Mere opposition to the Administration, by itself, is enough to qualify one as a "leftist" or "Liberal" – which, I do believe, was one of the principal points of my post:

It used to be the case that in order to be considered a "liberal" or someone "of the Left," one had to actually ascribe to liberal views on the important policy issues of the day – social spending, abortion, the death penalty, affirmative action, immigration, "judicial activism," hate speech laws, gay rights, utopian foreign policies, etc. etc. These days, to be a "liberal," such views are no longer necessary.

Now, in order to be considered a "liberal," only one thing is required – a failure to pledge blind loyalty to George W. Bush. The minute one criticizes him is the minute that one becomes a "liberal," regardless of the ground on which the criticism is based.

It is somewhat amazing to write a post describing this phenomenon only for Bush followers to deny its validity and, in doing so, provide such vibrant examples of exactly what I describing. They read the post and then rushed to dismiss what I wrote as coming from a "leftist" all because I criticized Bush and his followers. I suppose I should be grateful for the argumentative support.

(2) Moran at RightWing Nut House specifically objected to my claim that Andrew Sullivan has been excommunicated from the Church of Conservatism despite the fact that he still holds overwhelmingly conservative political views, strictly on the ground that he has become critical of George Bush (criticism which Sullivan often grounds in the fact that Bush’s actions are decisively un-conservative). In contesting this argument, Moran wrote:

But for Greenwald to posit the notion that Sullivan is no longer considered a conservative because of gadflies like Bozell is loony.

Ironically, Sullivan, shortly after Moran posted this, took the precise paragraphs quoted above (regarding how one becomes a "liberal" by virtue of criticizing George Bush) and made them the "Quote of the Day" on his site, concluding that my post "diagnos[es] the situation accurately."

Clearly, Sullivan is speaking from experience. Like so many others who have long identified as "conservative" and who hold conservative views on countless issues, he is now frequently described by Bush lovers as a "liberal," or worse, based exclusively on the fact that he is no longer blindly loyal to George Bush and is even sometimes critical of Bush's actions.

(3) One of the principal responses to the post was that it unfairly generalized Bush supporters. According to those advancing this objection, not all of them are blind loyalists to the Commander-in-Chief. Some conservatives support Bush only reluctantly and criticize him frequently on the ground that he is insufficiently conservative. This post by Mark Coffey is a good example of that objection.

I don’t disagree with this point. To the contrary, I would describe this point as being one of the principal prongs in my argument. There are conservatives who criticize Bush on a whole host of issues, either on the ground of ineptitude or because what Bush is doing is the very antithesis of conservatism. And they are treated as outcasts and traitors, and considered no longer to be real conservatives. That is one of the principal points of the post.

Here is an example of a kind of intellectually honest conservative I was describing, Matthew Regent, who explains his perspective in a comment here:

I'm a Republican and a conservative. I voted for Bush twice. I didn't want to the second time, but it was a two-horse race, and the other horse was Carter redux. I disapprove of Bush's job performance and have more than once been called a liberal or equivalent on conservative blogs as a consequence, despite my beliefs, which put me solidly in the moderate-conservative portion of the political spectrum.

I disapprove of Bush's presidency for a number of reasons, including fiscal recklessness, the misprosecution of the GWOT, the nationalization of issues like education and marriage, and general incompetence on the issues, from Katrina to Miers. Frankly, I don't think Bush is much of a conservative himself. I think he's a low-tax liberal who gets along with religious people at home and a Wilsonian abroad.

And yet when I say as much to many Bush supporters, I'm the one who is branded the liberal, the troll, etc. Bushism IS a personality cult.

The list of long-time conservatives who are the target of all sorts of attacks and decrees of excommunication when they criticize George Bush is long and growing, and if anything, my post was a defense of those conservatives rather than some claim that they do not exist. My post included multiple examples and there are countless more. The attacks don’t occur when they abandon conservatism. They occur when they dissent from the Bush Movement, which, in many -- I’d argue most -- cases, is not the same thing.

(4) None of the bloggers purporting to reply to the post addressed the fact that the arguments made by conservatives over the last three decades have been abandoned almost entirely and have been replaced by their precise antitheses -- all in order to justify George Bush’s conduct. The principal example used was the angry opposition to warrant-based FISA eavesdropping voiced by conservatives under the Clinton Administration, as compared to the stirring defense of warrantless, oversight-less eavesdropping now engaged in proudly by the Bush Administration.

But beyond that specific, quite revealing instance is the general disappearance of an anti-federal-government ethos. Principles of a restrained federal government and distrust of that government -- previously centerpieces of the conservative movement -- have been discarded like yesterday's trash in order to maintain praise of George Bush's actions and to maximize the powers and reach of the Federal Government now that Bush controls it.

Although no bloggers addressed this point, one commenter at Right Wing Nut House did, and in doing so, he illustrated that some things are beyond satire. Here is an excerpt from a satirical post by Dr. Biobrain purporting to disagree with what I wrote:

Sure, the current-day conservatives completely go against everything that they stood for before, but there's a perfectly good explanation for that: That was then, this is now. The conservative movement is nothing if not pragmatic, and simply because some liberals like Glenn are stuck in a pre-9/11 attitude concerning political ideologies is no concern to us. The conservative movement has moved on, and guys like Greenwald and Sullivan were simply left behind; flailing about like dying salmon.

Compare that with this Comment (number 10) at RWNH actually disagreeing with what I wrote:

As for your fallacious FISA complaint/argument, one small difference: war. While you were buying your overpriced yahoo during the new economy stupid and gutting the intelligence community, the evildoers (I want to make sure you know I am a Bush drone) metastasized. Then comes 9/11: it changed things you know? Well for
most of us at least.

That Bush supporters abandoned all of their anti-federal-government rhetoric the moment they got control of the Federal Government -- whereby there was no longer any such thing as an excessively powerful Federal Government -- can’t really be denied. So the only option available to them is to justify the fundamental reversal of their views once George Bush took office, and it really isn’t pretty to watch.

(5) Numerous people, both in the Comments section here and in blog replies to the post, raised the issue of conservative opposition to Bush’s Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, claiming that it constitutes proof that Bush supporters are still capable of some independent thought. As I said in the comments section last night in reply to this point:

I don't believe that one instance of independent thought in five years proves or disproves much of anything. The fact that people cling tenaciously to this example as proof that there are residual flickers of independent thought left among Bush followers says alot in itself. I think and have argued that Bush followers are excessively loyal to their leader, not that they've been lobotomized into mind-controlled zombies of the type one sees in a science-fiction film.

But I will say this: one will see criticism of Bush when he doesn't defend the movement with sufficient vigor or extremity. If they perceive that the White House isn't attacking liberals with sufficient fervor, or that they're backing down and compromising too readily, they will urge a more resolute posture on behalf of themovement. That's all Harriet Miers was. They were unconvinced that she would be as reliably loyal as Bush thought she would be, and they wanted someone more reliable and dependable to the cause.

(6) Charles Johnson at LGF wrote a post calling me a "liar" and accusing me of engaging in a "cheap, sleazy, intellectually lazy smear" because I linked to his website when pointing out that some Bush followers advocate dropping nuclear bombs on Muslim countries. Johnson says that he personally never advocated any such thing and, therefore, I’m a "liar."

LGF is a site far more notable, and far more frequently noted, for the prevailing sentiments expressed by the hundreds of rabid, regular commenters who swarm together after each post than it is notable for the one or two sentences which Johnson writes which serves as a trigger for those comments. For that reason, a substantial portion of the references in the blogosphere to "LGF," at least the ones I read, reference the comments section rather than the short, banal observations which Johnson spits outs before cutting and pasting a news article on the latest act of Muslim violence.

One of Johnson’s favorite little shticks is to express outrage whenever anyone attributes the sentiments of his regular, loyal commenters to his site. Disassociating himself with his own commenters seems particularly urgent for him now, in light of the reports that national advertisers don’t want anything to do with LGF because of the extremists which frequent that site.

It is extremely common to refer to the posts and commentators at that site collectively when referencing "LGF." For that reason, I believe it was entirely clear in what I wrote that I was pointing out that the pro-nuclear-war view is commonly expressed on that site, not necessarily by the individual who writes a couple of sentences with each news article. If that wasn’t clear, I am making it clear now: I have seen numerous commentators at LGF, including regular ones, advocate the dropping of nuclear weapons on Muslim countries, but have never read Johnson advocating that.

There is, though, a grand hypocrisy here which I can’t ignore. Bloggers everywhere, including Johnson, do exactly the same thing with references to "Daily Kos." Almost universally, "Daily Kos" is used as a shorthand for a wide range of horribles, very few of them having anything to do with what has been written specifically by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, but is instead based upon sentiments expressed by some of the tens of thousands of participants at the Kos website.

Among pro-Bush bloggers, "Daily Kos" is used as a shorthand for the perceived prevailing orthodoxies in the Kos community, just as "LGF" is used far more to refer to the sentiments one regularly finds among the cesspool of LGF comments. Indeed, just among the comments in response to my post yesterday, one can see precisely this use of "Kos" to refer to the writings and comments of all participants rather than Markos himself. See, for example, here ("Greenwald’s writing is little more than a tired echo of what conservatives can read on a daily basis at Kos") and ("If Greenwald would read something besides the "me too" screeds on Kos and Atrios"); and here (I’m engaged in a "slow descent into HuffingKosLand").

The petulance of Johnson’s complaint is exceeded only by its hypocrisy. Johnson himself routinely attributes sentiments and opinions to "Daily Kos" which are expressed not by Markos, but by commenters and diarists on his site. See, for instance, here ("Daily Kos: 17th Street Levee Bombed by the Army Corps of Engineers," referring to a diarist on Kos); here ("It’s a Hitler-fest at Daily Kos!" -- referring to the views of a Kos diarist); here ("Daily Kos: Bush Responsible for French Riots"-- referencing a poll from a Kos diarist), and here ("Daily Kos: 'We Need ... Rivers of Blood,'" referring to a diarist on Kos). This list goes on and on, with Johnson attributing ideas to "Daily Kos" that have never been expressed by Markos, only by the commenters and diarists at that site.

So, to recap Charles Johnson’s ethical views of the world: Attributing ideas to "Daily Kos" which were written by Kos diarists and commenters and not by Markos -- something Johnson does with great frequency -- is perfectly acceptable and honest. But attributing ideas to "LGF" which were written with frequency by regular LGF commenters but not by Johnson is unacceptable, and doing so makes one a "liar."

UPDATE: If The New York Times gave me a pen and blank piece of paper and said that I could write any article I wanted to support my argument from yesterday, I would have written the article published today by Bush admirer Elisabeth Bumiller, entitled "An Outspoken Conservative Loses his Place at the Table" (h/t Devoman in Comments). It begins this way:

What happens if you're a Republican commentator and you write a book critical of President Bush that gets you fired from your job at a conservative think tank?

For starters, no other conservative institution rushes in with an offer for your analytical skills."Nobody will touch me," said Bruce Bartlett, author of the forthcoming "Impostor: Why George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." "I think I'm just kind of radioactive at the moment." . . .

Mr. Bartlett, a domestic policy aide at the White House in the Reagan administration and a deputy assistant treasury secretary under the first President Bush, talked last week at his suburban Washington home about his dismissal, his book and a growing disquiet among conservatives about Mr. Bush. . . .

He is unhappy, too, with the president's education and campaign finance bills and his proposal to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, which many Republicans call a dressed-up amnesty plan. The book, to be published by Doubleday on Feb. 28, also criticizes the White House for "an anti-intellectual distrust of facts and analysis" and an obsession with secrecy.

"I haven't switched to the Democratic Party," he said. "I wrote this for Republicans."

The article details how Bartlett, after being fired, has been shunned by conservatives for his blasphemy in criticizing George Bush on the ground that Bush has governed contrary to conservative principles.

Of particular note is this:

"Bruce is really an exception, not the rule, in the degree and thoroughness of his discontent," said William Kristol, a conservative strategist and the editor of The Weekly Standard. "So I wouldn't make too much of it. On the other hand, one thing I've noticed giving speeches in the last couple of months is that conservatives remain pro-Bush, but the loyalty to the movement and the ideas is deeper than the personal loyalty now. Two years ago, Bush was the movement and the cause."

That would be leading neo-conservative light William Kristol saying exactly what I said yesterday which (when I said it) was supposedly an example of crazed leftist idiocy: namely, that "Bush was the movement and the cause." Now granted, Kristol is claiming that this has changed over the last couple of years, but Bartlett's plight negates that claim rather strongly, and the fact that Kristol himself acknowledges a conflating of George Bush with "the movement and the cause" ought to give honest Bush followers serious pause for thought. Although Kristol says it in his characteristically understated way, it's a pretty serious condemnation to say that George Bush the person became the cause for "conservatives."

UPDATE II: Jonah Goldberg contributes some characteristically thoughtful and provocative responses here and here (my argument is "objectively inaccurate and stupid" and "as for" me, he "couldn't care less"). Ironically, a little later on, he references the Bumiller article here without realizing that it negates every single "point" he made in response to my post.

UPDATE III: In an Update of his own, Jonah says in response to e-mail that he received that he never actually read my post, and that when he called my argument "objectively inaccurate and stupid," he meant only the 2 paragraphs excerpted by Andrew Sullivan. Isn't that a little bit like calling a movie "objectively inaccurate and stupid" based on a review of the movie in a newspaper or after watching only a 2-minute trailer? TBogg's archives, as I hope he'll point out, cover this situation far better than anything I could say.
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FranchiseBlade · Feb 13, 2006

That article was spot on. It is funny that if more people really held true to ideals rather than the person who is the standard bearer for the moment, we'd all have a lot more in common, and getting things done in govt. would probably be a lot easier.

Deckard · Feb 13, 2006

Thanks for posting that, surrender. It nails how the Republicans I know feel about Bush and his policies. The only complaint I have is that my middle aged (god, it's hard to type that!) eyes have a difficult time reading the small print, but I read it.

It's all frighteningly true.

Keep D&D Civil.

mc mark · Feb 13, 2006

copy and paste it into word and set the font to 14.

hey it's what I do sometimes.

nyquil82 · Feb 13, 2006

I think an equally fair argument could be said that Bush haters also have no political ideology. That is, those who criticize everything Bush does.

basso · Feb 13, 2006

Deckard said:

Thanks for posting that, surrender. It nails how the Republicans I know feel about Bush and his policies. The only complaint I have is that my middle aged (god, it's hard to type that!) eyes have a difficult time reading the small print, but I read it.

It's all frighteningly true.

Keep D&D Civil.
Click to expand...

this post just demonstrates how little you understand about how/why George Bush was elected president twice.

basso · Feb 13, 2006

-- removed by an Administrator -- Please do not post links to p*rnography on this board.

white lightning · Feb 13, 2006

basso said:

this post just demonstrates how little you understand about how/why George Bush was elected president twice.
Click to expand...

I was really looking forward to intelligent criticism of the article by some Bush supporters. This is a little disappointing. Also, thanks for the link to the hard core p*rn site- classy move.

thadeus · Feb 13, 2006

white lightning said:

Also, thanks for the link to the hard core p*rn site- classy move.
Click to expand...

Yeah, thanks!

basso · Feb 13, 2006

white lightning said:

I was really looking forward to intelligent criticism of the article by some Bush supporters. This is a little disappointing. Also, thanks for the link to the hard core p*rn site- classy move.
Click to expand...

it's not that hard core...

Deckard · Feb 13, 2006

basso said:

this post just demonstrates how little you understand about how/why George Bush was elected president twice.
Click to expand...

I understand very well why Bush became President twice. What I don't understand is why people like you support him and his Administration, no matter what they do. What surrender posted is exactly what I hear from the Republicans, and former Republicans I know. They almost all look at Bush the way this writer does. They wonder what happened to the man who was Governor of Texas. They are mystified by his policies. They liked his early reaction to 9/11, but cannot believe what he's done since.

Did you even read what surrender posted? You are reacting exactly like someone obsessed in this "cult of personality." You react to criticism, no matter how well grounded, and no matter from what source, exactly how the writer describes. I really find it sad, basso.

Keep D&D Civil.

tinman · Feb 13, 2006

Deckard said:

Did you even read what surrender posted? You are reacting exactly like someone obsessed in this "cult of personality."

Keep D&D Civil.
Click to expand...

look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, i know your dreams
I've been everything you want to be
I'm the cult of personality
Like mussolini and kennedy
I'm the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights, a nobel prize
The mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set me free
I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your t.v.
I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you still you love me

I tell you one and one makes three
I'm the cult of personality
Like joseph stalin and gandi
I'm the cult of personality
Cult of personality
Cult of personality

Neon lights a nobel prize
A leader speaks, that leader dies
You don't have to follow me
Only you can set you free

Jeffster · Feb 13, 2006

What dimension is this that random people's blogs are copied and pasted as if they are news articles or something? Sometimes I feel like the oldest 29 year old alive.

Oh, and to respond to the topic question, I am glad that I don't fit into someone's convenient little box of "ideology." I have strong views but they don't fall in lock step with any group or political party. I like President Bush much more than I do the Republican party or a conservative ideology.

But I'm sure Mike at Ohmygodlookathesizeofmyblog.com thinks I pee sitting down.

Deckard · Feb 13, 2006

Jeffster said:

..........
But I'm sure Mike at Ohmygodlookathesizeofmyblog.com thinks I pee sitting down.
Click to expand...

You don't??

Keep D&D Civil.

surrender · Feb 13, 2006

Jeffster said:

Oh, and to respond to the topic question, I am glad that I don't fit into someone's convenient little box of "ideology." I have strong views but they don't fall in lock step with any group or political party. I like President Bush much more than I do the Republican party or a conservative ideology.
Click to expand...

Methinks you didn't read the article, or at least missed the point of it. The article isn't about the actual ideology of Bush and his supporters; it's about how Bush's supporters claimed the name "conservative" for themselves and brand anybody who disagrees with any aspect of his policy as "unconservative" instead of arguing the merits of their argument, independent of what their actual ideology is. Then anybody branded "unconservative" is not worth arguing with because they're not conservative and are probably working for the Chinese and so on. It's red scare mania all over again, with different labels.

surrender · Feb 13, 2006

Jeffster said:

What dimension is this that random people's blogs are copied and pasted as if they are news articles or something? Sometimes I feel like the oldest 29 year old alive.
Click to expand...

Also, I didn't realize that we were only supposed to post news articles and discuss the merits of the news, because that certainly wasn't the point of this thread.

FranchiseBlade · Feb 14, 2006

basso said:

it's not that hard core...
Click to expand...

You should at least warn so that if someone is with the family, and links that, and the kids see they won't be freaked out. Or if a kid comes on after their parent and hits the back button or something.

Mr. Brightside · Feb 14, 2006

FranchiseBlade said:

You should at least warn so that if someone is with the family, and links that, and the kids see they won't be freaked out. Or if a kid comes on after their parent and hits the back button or something.
Click to expand...

What happened to Christians and their conservative values?

giddyup · Feb 14, 2006

Mr. Brightside said:

What happened to Christians and their conservative values?
Click to expand...

One of those was a retro site...

Seems like another case of demonizing by over-statement.

Is that you, Deckard, romanticizing Bush's days as Governor of Texas? I thought that you hated him then, too.

I think nyquil hit it head on. Things are so totally politicized that it's either ALL BAD or ALL GOOD. In a way, nobody is being truthful.

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