Sure, there were plenty of intellectuals in the conservative movement 30, 40, 50 years ago, and there still are. But I doubt that the proportion of political power which came from the strength of intellectual arguments alone was much different in 1969 than it is today. It’s just that in ’64 it was “get the commies” instead of “drill, baby, drill!”

Get some perspective people. I’m didn’t follow Joe’s work in the Middle East, and I’m not going to start now. But he’s certainly not the problem the right is facing. The problem with the right is a lack of principle and spine. Currently the left is only dealing with a lack of principle, a spine they’ve got.

I have to say, it’s too bad that the ideas-driven, intellectual old right lost its grip on the conservative movement.

They gave up and switched to the other side. They decided that they would rather indulge the identity politics crowd by electing an empty suit with the right complexion than the only politician on either ticket with an actual libertarian leaning record. They decided that since her personal views were oh-so-crude, they couldn’t look past the fact that she had gone with liberty over imposing her views over and over as governor of Alaska.

The Intellectual Old Right decided that they would rather have a freedom hating socialist from Harvard run things than to succumb to having a state college strumpet who did unlady-like things like ride a snowmobile and hunt anywhere near the White House.

Of course, no party has a monopoly on morons in their party. You’ve got people duped and voting against their own interests across racial, and economic lines. I always love to converse with a libertarian who always votes for the republican because they will not grow the government, and the republican who votes for a Bush, and democrat who votes for a Kennedy after Bobby and Jack. It is hilarious all around.

We get the leaders we deserve. Now, where’s my feinting couch?

How ’bout picking some people for Treasury? Ones who use Turbotax

Yea, we need some good accountants, not more “economists”…!

I have a neighbor down the street (Los Angeles) that has two bumper stickers on his car:
1.
Republicans, working hard so you don’t have to

2.
Wine me, dine me, 69 me

Any conclusion to be drawn there?

Good grief. Despise the working man? What is that even supposed to mean? The 53% of us who voted for Obama are, what, trust fund babies or welfare cheats to the last man?

Republicans should use her to focus the left’s attention and then switch to another candidate. The momentum of bashing Palin would not be able to switch over to the new guy in time to make a difference.

His first public appearance was as a skeptical voter trying to make up his mind. Either he was a right-wing plant from the beginning (a la Santelli), posing as an undecided voter, or he lurched rightward as soon as he figured out which side his bread was buttered on (which makes him a match for Palin in venality). Either way, anyone who takes him seriously is just plain fucking stupid.

Now I’ll agree that one invites a certain amount of scrutiny when they make a public stand on that sort of issue, so perhaps the conservative media figures and bloggers paid to their countertops was warranted. But given that assumption, I’m not really sure you can fault the media for inquiring into Joe the Plumber after John McCain essentially made the guy a campaign prop in the final debate, and especially given how ridiculously full of shit he was (he’s not Joe, not even “the Plumber”, not making anywhere near $250k, and obviously quite certain who he was voting for even as he disingenuously posed as the undecided everyman).

Obviously I don’t condone the background checks that were performed on him in Ohio (and I’d note that the person who ordered them has resigned, and the dem governor signed into law a bill criminalizing such searches shortly after). But that’s a different animal than the “media blitz” and different still than what the Frosts were subjected to.