Kos posted a link to the story earlier...Wick Allison...former National Review publisher endorses Obama as a right thinking conservative. Mr. Allison waxes elloquent about the glory days of conservatism, a time when being a Republican simply meant fiscal responsibility and social stability....yes, the glory days...in a time long ago...back in the far away time....waaayyyyyyy back ... before the so-called Reagan revolution.
Since that time....Republicans have increasingly been ideological advocates of extreme free marketism.... the kind of business that has no regulation or governor except itself....the wrong minded belief that business, if left unchecked will always do good....the ass backwards proposition that greed is good. Unfortunately, the National Review has helped perpetuate the primacy of the free market philosophy and encouraged its further co-opting by the neo-conservatives and their particularly rabid form of politics....behold the fruit of their effort.
Mr. Allison...from you I need more.
Wick is right to recognize in Obama "conservative" traits, but wrong to equate those traits as the sole province of his imagined and idealized GOP. That party has demonstrably proven it has no monopoly on judgment or insight. If they did, as they then claimed and as Mr. Allison subtly reaffirms in his article, if that PARTY really did have a monopoly on those things...if they really were as smart and we as stupid as they led everyone to believe, then the natural conclusion of the current economic crisis would mean they did it on fucking purpose. Which is it? You knew and screwed us to loot the tax coffers and make yourselves "untouchable?" Or you were all wrong, incompetent and more driven to gain and keep power than to do the right thing for this Country?
That the right wing media, like National Review, its various neocon spawn, FOX, Rush, etc., were the cheerleaders for this ideological trainwreck is a fact so well documented that I only pray they deny it. The systematic cleansing of our government of all professionals and their replacement with party ideologues is so well documented that I hope they deny that to.
So I say to Mr. Wick.....it's time for a true mea culpa.....if you are what you say...if the current administration is, in your mind, a perversion of what you think it should be....you OWE IT TO YOUR COUNTRY...to say so, repeat it, shout it from the rooftops, tell your other friends and don't stop.....tell Rush to admit it.....tell FOX to report it....tell the true believers they've been duped and do it in a hurry.
This Country is more vulnerable today than most folks realize. America's best days may...hopefully will be ahead of us...but only if we act now...only IF guys like you lay it ALL out there. And thanks for stepping up...it's a start.