Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window - Steve Wozniak

Monday, June 25, 2007

If you want to see what has become of the “conservative” movement in this country, nothing explains it better than this report from one of NR’s much-touted reader cruises.  The Buckley referenced in the piece is William F. Buckley, godfather of American conservatism.  (Well, of real American conservatism, anyway.)

Buckley is an urbane old reactionary, drunk on doubts. He founded National Review in 1955--when conservatism was viewed in polite society as a mental affliction--and he has always been skeptical of appeals to “the people,” preferring the eternal top-down certainties of Catholicism. He united with Podhoretz in mutual hatred of Godless Communism, but, slouching into his eighties, he possesses a worldview that is ill-suited for the fight to bring democracy to the Muslim world. He was a ghostly presence on the cruise at first, appearing only briefly to shake a few hands. But now he has emerged, and he is fighting.

“Aren’t you embarrassed by the absence of these weapons?” Buckley snaps at Podhoretz. He has just explained that he supported the war reluctantly, because Dick Cheney convinced him Saddam Hussein had WMD primed to be fired. “No,” Podhoretz replies. “As I say, they were shipped to Syria. During Gulf war one, the entire Iraqi air force was hidden in the deserts in Iran.” He says he is “heartbroken” by this “rise of defeatism on the right.” He adds, apropos of nothing, “There was nobody better than Don Rumsfeld. This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we’re winning.”

The audience cheers Podhoretz. The nuanced doubts of Bill Buckley leave them confused. Doesn’t he sound like the liberal media? Later, over dinner, a tablemate from Denver calls Buckley “a coward.” His wife nods and says, “Buckley’s an old man,” tapping her head with her finger to suggest dementia.

I am often derided by the intellectual midgets of the right (i.e. Drumwaster) for drawing a distinction between true conservatism, a grand ideology of doubt and propriety, and contemporary conservatism, an authoritarian hodgepodge of gung-ho militarism, unbridled worship of figureheads, and overt machismo.  Well, here we see the dynamic in action.  You can call me a liberal all you like because I’m a pussy who doesn’t think torture and imprisonment without trial are honorable activities.  You can call Sullivan a liberal because, after all, he’s a queer gay homo who thinks men should marry.  (Ewww, icky.) And now even WFB, the grand old man himself, is being turned upon by the addle-minded spawn of the movement he created. 

It’s like Paris Hilton dressing down Conrad Hilton.  It’s pathetic, and when you’re dealing with an intellectual movement as devoid of honesty as today’s brand of conservatism, it brings to mind a strong desire to just scrap the whole fucking thing and start over again.  And as the candidates fall over themselves to inherit the mantle of Ronald Reagan, let’s find out what a man who considered him a close friend thinks he would have done post 9/11.

I ask him if he feels like a parent whose kids grew up to be serial killers. He smiles slightly, and his blue eyes appear to twinkle. Then he sighs, “The answer is no. Because what animated the conservative core for forty years was the Soviet menace, plus the rise of dogmatic socialism. That’s pretty well gone.”

This does not feel like an optimistic defense of his brood, but it’s a theme he returns to repeatedly: The great battles of his life are already won. Still, he ruminates over what his old friend Ronald Reagan would have made of Iraq. “I think the prudent Reagan would have figured here, and the prudent Reagan would have shunned a commitment of the kind that we are now engaged in. ... I think he would have attempted to find some sort of assurance that any exposure by the United States would be exposure to a challenge the dimensions of which we could predict.” Lest liberals be too eager to adopt the Gipper as one of their own, Buckley agrees approvingly that Reagan’s approach would have been to “find a local strongman” to rule Iraq.

Which is what we’ll end up doing anyway.  As someone who once proudly shared and advocated many of the goals of the neocons, I officially declare that ideology a failure.