RICHARD VIGUERIE OFFERED TO PAY ME TO SHILL FOR HIM ON DWT

Normally I would just delete an e-mail from Richard Viguerie or from any other right wing extremist who has done so much to damage our country. But I had a feeling-- don't ask me why-- that there was something I needed to read in the e-mail titled "Earn $5 for Each Copy of Conservatives Betrayed Sold Thru Your Website." First of all, I have no interest in his $5 per book sold and I'm obviously not putting up his ad or linking to his page or any of that. Over the last year or so I made note of Viguerie's growing disenchantment with the Bush Regime as it left mainstream conservatism in the dust for that ideology's natural next step: incipient fascism.

So when I scanned it and noticed Viguerie suggesting that his many right wing followers abandon the Republican Party, I decided to take a closer look. In the new book he's flogging, Conservatives Betrayed, Viguerie urges conservatives to:

• Withhold all financial support of the Republican Party’s national and most state fundraising committees.
• Withhold all financial support from all establishment Republican candidates; support only true conservative candidates and organizations.
• Withhold support from all 2008 presidential hopefuls; no recently mentioned candidates are worthy of conservative support.
• No longer think of yourself as a Republican, but rather as a Reagan Conservative.
• Work and operate as a Conservative Third Force in American politics (not 3rd party) to retake the GOP and move even the Democrats significantly to the right.

I like the idea of just about anything that will loosen the Republican Party's death drip on power. But not enough to advertise the book for him. And that's what the e-mail was all about. It'll be interesting to see if any of the lefty bloggers take him up on his offer ($5/book sold on their sites). "Whether you're a conservative or a liberal," it starts, "you can easily profit from this opportunity! Earn $5 for each copy of Richard Viguerie’s controversial new book, Conservatives Betrayed, which is sold through your website! This is the only book that directly addresses the split between Republicans and conservatives-- one of the most prominent topics in politics today. His complaint, of course, is that George Bush and the Inside-the-Beltway Repugs have hijacked the conservative cause. he thinks he can resuscitate it. I think Bush, Cheney and the neo-Cons have killed it for at least a decade.


UPDATE: SCARBOROUGH'S ADVICE TO REPUBLICANS-- BLAME BUSH

Just after seeing that note from Viguerie that indicates Bush is the conservative movement's anti-Christ, former Florida Republican congressman (now right wing propagandist), Joe Scarborough has a column in tomorrow's Washington Post purporting to "feel sorry for my old Republican friends in Congress who are fighting for their political lives. After all, it must be tough explaining to voters at their local Baptist church's Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400 billion deficit. How exactly does one convince the teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff, fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their House majority leader?"

Not only does he suggest blaming Bush, he claims Bush deserves to be blamed and not just because he's awful but because he's an asshole. "Escaping political death by attacking an unpopular president is hardly new-- especially since most endangered politicians have the loyalty of a starving billy goat. But this is Dubya's Washington, where the White House has pushed around, bullied and betrayed GOP lawmakers for years. Republican House members and senators always believed that this White House took them for granted." Scarborough excuses the universally adopted 6 years of rubber stampism with a lame "they had no choice" because Bush was "a rock star" after 9/11 and they were "intimidated." Poor dears.

Scarborough goes on to make a better anti-Bush case than walking-on-egg-shells Democratic non-leaders. "Even when the administration would not give generals the troops they needed to win the war in Iraq, Republican leaders did nothing. When the president refused to veto a single spending bill while the deficit spiraled upward, Republican leaders looked away. And when chaos was reigning in the streets of New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast in Katrina's horrific aftermath, Republican leaders remained mute. That silence-- proof that it is better to be feared than loved in politics-- has had devastating results. The United States is more divided than ever, our leaders are despised around the world, our fiscal situation is catastrophic and congressional approval ratings are the lowest ever. Since nothing sharpens the mind like a political hanging, Republican leaders in the Senate and House are finally considering doing what effete newspaper editorialists have suggested for years: throwing Bush overboard."

But taking some modicum of responsibility? I doubt it ever crossed Scarborough's mind. He is, after all, still a Republican. And it never dawned on him that it may be too late. Of course, having been in Congress, he probably knows Rahm Emanuel well enough to figure out that maybe it isn't too late.