A CONSERVATIVE CRITIQUE OF BUSHCO: UNCONSCIONABLE, IRRESPONSIBLE, VINDICTIVE, INEPT... A RECKLESS SOCIALIST

Thems fightin' words! Especially in the increasingly stressed out world of a falling apart conservative movement. Today Dana Milbank reported in the WASHINGTON POST that yesterday was Bush-bashing day at ye olde Cato Institute, one of the few right-wing think tanks that possess even a modicum of credibility in the real world. (That's because they take their libertarian philosophy seriously and they're not generally seen as a bunch of co-opted Republican Party hacks'n'whores-- like the denizens of all the other "conservative" think tanks).

Yesterday David Boaz, the Institute's Executive Vice President moderated a discussion that included so big name conservatives who have been screaming the Emperor has no clothes-- and he's ugly as hell-- for quite some time. The featured speaker, in fact was none other than former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett, author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," not a big fave around the White House. And he was followed by another, somewhat loonier, non-fan of Bush debacle, Andrew Sullivan (the one whose new tome calls Bush a socialist, the ultimate slapdown in Wingnutia). Sullivan may be... eccentric but he has a following on the loony right (especially among gay wing nuts) and he accused Bush of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."

Bartlett kicked off the festivities by predicting a big tax increase "to finance the inevitable growth of government that is in the pipeline that President Bush is largely responsible for." He also said many fellow conservatives don't know about the "quite dreadful" traits of the administration, such as the absence of "anybody who does any serious analysis" on policy issues. Adding fuel to the libertarian fire-- and nothing will get them going like talk of a tax increase-- Sullivan claimed Bush's outrageous Big Government Agenda is "fueled by the ideology of Christian fundamentalism."


10AM UPDATE: EVEN RIGHT WING LOONS KNOW HIS GOOSE IS COOKED

Yep, even die-hard conservatives are finally beginning to see Bush is the absolute worst thing that has ever happened to our country. This must be the tenth time this week that I read a right-winger admitting that "even Clinton" was demonstrably much better than Bush. Today the far right World Net Daily features a piece by Wingnutia stalwart Joseph Farah called "Dubya's Last Stand" and it makes a great case-- for impeachment.


FRIDAY UPDATE: KRUGMAN SAYS "I TOLD YOU TWO DOOFUSES SO!"

"Human nature being what it is," writes Paul Krugman, "I don't expect Mr. Bartlett to acknowledge his about-face. Nor do I expect any expressions of remorse from Andrew Sullivan, the conservative Time.com blogger who also spoke at the Cato forum." But he graciously acknowledges that late is better than never and says we should welcome those who have thrown off their blinders. "But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning." Still his NY TIMES column today is celebrating that "Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back."