Wherein Urinating Conservatives Attempt to Convince Us It’s Raining

“Conservatism is a glistening mirage in the desert which enchants fellow travelers as you steal their canteen.”

— Commenter Wasabi Gasp in the comments to this post over at Balloon Juice.

In the post, John Cole absolutely nails something that has been bugging me, which is this surreal debate going on at various sites regarding the “true nature of conservatism.”

I am so sick and tired of these “esoteric” discussions about the flawless, formless, and timeless beauty of conservatism. It is utter nonsense. We got unchecked “conservatism” the past eight years, and instead of water, it felt more like urine, as they pissed all over us. Conservatism brought us an expanded surveillance state, intervention into a man’s marriage, unchecked budgets, war of aggression, torture, a rejection and mockery of both science and the rule of law, the unchecked executive branch, and on and on and on. The conservative standard bearers are now Sarah Palin and Eric Cantor and Rush Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber.

After getting hammered in two national elections, the rehabilitation of conservatism takes the form of these flowery paeans about the timeless wisdom of an ideology that is the “negation of ideology.” What a load of gibberish. At what point will these clowns realize that they sound like the Soviet apologists in the late 80’s and 90’s who wanted to tell us that communism didn’t fail, it just wasn’t properly implemented?

[My emphasis]

This bit about communism is an analogy that has occurred to me again and again over these last few months. I went to college in the eighties, and back then you would still encounter these dyed-in-the-wool, old-school Marxists who would insist that you couldn’t judge communism a failure just because of the Soviet Union. Or Bulgaria. Or East Germany. Or Poland. Or Romania. Or Hungary. Or Czechoslovakia. And you certainly couldn’t judge communism a failure because of China. Or Vietnam. Or Laos. Or North Korea. And you couldn’t judge it a failure because of Cuba. Or the Congo. Or Angola. Communism turned every one of these countries into a living hell, but according to the true believers none of that could be construed as an indictment of Marxism because none of the countries in which it was tried managed to get it quite right, as though Marxism is a recipe for mole poblano and humanity is a particularly ham-handed chef.

Now we are witnessing an updated version of this sad, deluded spectacle as conservatives earnestly beg for a do-over. We didn’t mean it. It’ll be different this time. Now we hear the endless whinging that Bush betrayed conservatism, because under no circumstances should we do anything so rash or hasty as holding conservatism responsible for what occurred in this country over the last eight years.

Heavens no.

Maybe the caterwauling would ring truer if the Republicans had emerged from the wreckage in a chastened, introspective state, eager to take full responsibility for their actions (isn’t that what they’re always going on about?) and offering meaningful solutions to how we might begin to dig ourselves out of the mess we’re in. But there’s been precious little of that on the right. Instead we’ve been treated to astroturf tea parties and calls for armed insurrection after eight weeks under a Democratic administration. Instead we’ve been presented with the natterings of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber, and, as John Cole puts it, “Anyone who gets excited by the idea of rule by Palin isn’t fit to drive a motor vehicle, let alone be at the forefront of a political movement.”