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The CPAC-Right Left Behind as America ‘Moves On’

“The country’s conservative, Republican-dominated strongholds have shrunk to the Deep South, the Plains and talk radio. […]
“This is the first time since the aftermath of Watergate that conservatives have known what it is like to be so completely out of power, out-funded, out-organized and arguably irrelevant to national governance.”
– Joel Achenbach, “The Conservatives’ ‘Cleansing’ Moment,” Washington Post, March 1, 2009.

It’s said when it rains it pours and what’s currently happening to the ultra right-wing remnants who still call themselves conservative Republicans is no trickle-down sprinkle – they have put themselves in the path of monsoon season, apparently trying to hasten their status as a fringe political cult akin to the People’s Temple or the Moonies.

The new Know-Nothing Party, assembled in Washington for the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) Conference last weekend, proved both its penchant for blockheaded obliviousness and rare talent for unintended hilarity by honoring as ‘conservative intellectuals’ (that whirring sound you hear is William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater spinning in their graves) a nerdy little wimp, a has-been simp and a bloviating blimp, also known as, respectively if not respectfully, 13-year-old annoyance Jonathan Krohn; long over-The-Hill GOP retread Newt Gingrich and, of course, the Master of Disaster, the rotund right-wing radio bleater Rush Limbaugh.

While adorable future drug addict Krohn studiously and without irony recited to appreciative hoots and ringing applause the common themes tilled up by most of the CPAC speakers – conservatives stand for respecting the Constitution; respecting life, (at least the unborn kind as opposed to that in uniform or in jail); less government; personal responsibility, and protecting the freedoms and rights of the people – neither he nor his big brothers Newtie and Rush bothered with a brief history lesson of America under conservative Republican rule. Not surprising, since it pulls out the rug from beneath their empty claims. For example:

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