John Cole's great piece on Obama and the flag pin

[Hamlette]

Long piece by David Brooks in which he attempts to figure out why the Republican party appears to be in shambles:

"To put it bluntly, over the past several years, the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots. This may seem like an airy-fairy thing that does nothing more than provoke a few dissenting columns from William F. Buckley, George F. Will and Andrew Sullivan. But suburban, Midwestern and many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives. They care about order, prudence and balanced budgets more than transformational leadership and perpetual tax cuts. It is among these groups that G.O.P. support is collapsing.

American conservatism will never be just dispositional conservatism. America is a creedal nation. But American conservatism is only successful when it’s in tension — when the ambition of its creeds is retrained by the caution of its Burkean roots."

Hogwash. If you want to know why the Republican party is in shambles, read this:

"Yesterday, in response to a question from a reporter suspicious of why he wasn’t wearing an American flag pin on his lapel, Barack Obama explained his belief that for some, the pins became a substitute for “true patriotism.” The senator said he would instead “try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

I didn’t expect leading conservative voices to understand, but I was a little surprised at the ferocity of the response. Jonah Goldberg described Obama’s perspective as “staggeringly stupid,” and “the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of him doing.” Another prominent far-right blogger responded this way:
Seriously, you want this for President of these great United States.This is how he catches the attention of a media aligned with the terror force? This useful tool won’t wear an American flag pin? Talk about pandering to the radical base, he ought to run against Ahmadinejad. He is scoring points with Georgie Soros, won’t be waiting long for his on his Soros stipend, I’m sure. What’s Obama Hussein’s new campaign slogan, “America Sucks!” ?"

For starters, people got tired of being associated with these drooling retards. Then, when they realized that these drooling retards had ideological allies running the show in the Bush administration and then began to experience their idiotic policies, they moved from disgusted to outright hostile.

Like me. It had nothing to do with Burke, and everything to do with what the party had become. A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8799

read the comments...there are some great ones!

[MH1]

1. I saw that today...was thinking about posting it - it's great!

and I had the same thought about the comments. :)

Thanks for posting. Rec'd.

[tanyev]

2. Maybe these conservatives should get their Made-in-China flag pins tested for lead content.

[rurallib]

4. LOL ----

Talk about patriotism - didn't Cheyney move a bunch of his holdings into Euros? Way to back your homeland you prick.

[EVDebs]

3. Brooks validates Naomi Klein's 'shock doctrine' thesis

"American conservatism is only successful when it’s in tension — when the ambition of its creeds is retrained by the caution of its Burkean roots." When the GOP is out shocking the system with it's bad policies it is very much in need of restraint. Like right now !