Thomas Frank: Conservatives and Their Pity Parties

[marmar]

Published on Thursday, March 5, 2009 by The Wall Street Journal

Conservatives and Their Pity Parties
Out of power and out of touch, they feast on stale slogans and whine.

by Thomas Frank


Just as the financial crisis has created toxic assets and "zombie" financial institutions, so has it transformed conservatism into a movement of the living dead. Its partisans cling to a now-toxic portfolio of discredited notions, rhetoric, gestures and strategies. They lumber comically on, their only goal being to obstruct efforts to save the economy from catastrophe.

These days the zombie right is rallying around CNBC commentator Rick Santelli, who won fame last month when he railed against a rescue of the economy's "losers."

Mr. Santelli claimed he was backed in his outrage by "the silent majority" -- meaning a floor full of traders at the Chicago Board of Trade -- and he called for a "Chicago tea party" to protest the administration's mortgage plan.

Next thing you knew, there were "tea parties" all over the land. When I showed up for one last Friday in Washington's Lafayette Park, however, my suspicions were immediately raised. A fellow in an expensive-looking pinstriped suit came hustling into the gathering knot of the discontented, handing out pink pig balloons. This had to be a put-on, I thought, one of the "Billionaires for Bush" pranksters in his capitalist costume, preparing to lead us in a chant of "Four More Wars."

But no, this was for real: the pigs symbolized "pork," the stuff of which President Barack Obama's stimulus package was supposedly made. Suits were common among the protesters. And the slogans on the signs made their undead politics impossible to misinterpret: "Liberalism Socialism Communism," read a typical one, "What's the Difference?" .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/05-7

[CTyankee]

1. I call this "Last Gasp" politics, because that's what this is: the dying gasps for air

of a wizened, decrepit, disease ridden near corpse called the GOP.

I'm letting this all go, primarily because I am recovering from rough surgery and I don't have the patience for it, but also because I see with great clarity that what Frank has to say is so true.

Game over, GOP, you lost. You just don't know it.

[damntexdem]

2. But it's the only type of party they have now -- certainly not a political party.

Whine and geez, anyone?

[gratuitous]

3. The Wall Street Journal published a Thomas Frank column?

Yikes. The world turned upside-down indeed. Just last week, the WSJ was giving Karl Rove space to whine about how Obama's budget represented the greatest peactime federal spending increase in history. Peacetime?

I'm guessing that Murdoch is just trying to sell arms to both sides so as to garner a little more loot for himself.