Right, Zoltan!. It's a conspiracy! Safire sure bent over backward to support the NYT stand on impeachment. Anyway, the analysis I prefer is from the neoconservative political theologian corner.
The split divides the GOP, but the gap is not about ideology. The presidential race sometimes gets depicted as a contest between Che Guevara and Francisco Franco, with McCain as the lefty and Bush as the hard-core conservative. But the fact is that both men are moderate conservatives, and if you can tell the difference between them on issues like abortion, school choice, federal spending, then you're probably able to count the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Instead, this rift runs much deeper than public policy: it's really a clash between two different world views. The people who support Bush have a movement mentality. They belong to the conservative movement that cohered around Barry Goldwater and hardened under Reagan and Gingrich. They look out over that GOP coalition?the gun lovers, the religious conservatives, the free marketeers?and they think that adds up to 51 percent of the electorate. The movement consciousness is based on the idea that we are a band of brave, beleaguered souls under perpetual assault from the liberal mainstream media. These people detest McCain because liberals don't hate him.
In one of the great ironies of modern political history, Bush is this movement's anointed candidate. His father felt he had to court conservatives to get elected, but you always had the impression he was holding his nose. Bush the Younger, on the other hand, enthusiastically wooed the Republican and conservative elites. He's got the governors, senators, as well as Rush Limbaugh, Ralph Reed and most of the major activists. Maybe Bush thought he could dominate these folks?but because W is so malleable, they ended up molding him. (from newsweek.com
See, I still sort of like W, but the molding part is pretty scary. It's not particularly clear what W believes in these days, except maybe in trying hard to keep the smirk off. That particular piece was written by one David Brooks, allegedly a senior editor of The Weekly Standard, which is in turn allegedly popular among the neoconservative political theologians, though I wouldn't know. I think you're much more entertaining, though. |
