Rant of the Year

Hunter at Daily Kos takes the John Aravosis post to which I referred yesterday and runs with it. Although you really need to read the whole thing, here is a sample:

Conservatism, whatever it may be, is hopefully not this. You don't have far to look, in the Republican Party, to find true conservatives. I may not like the political stances of a John McCain or an Arlen Specter, but nor do I fear for the nation if they come to lead the Republican party. Men of integrity can disagree on the principles of government; men whose sole moral compass is directed by what they can technically get away with, however, aren't political men. They're just crooks.

But for every politician of questionable honesty, for every staffer under arrest, for every Republican lobbyist caught as bagman, there's a hundred desperate Bill Kristols willing to prostrate themselves and their own morality in exchange for another perceived half an inch towards their own movement's elusive prize: some nebulous faux-conservative utopia that always turns to a deficit-riddled, pork-choked, crony-laden hell within the first years their chosen Republican leaders try to implement it. And then, the political cycle repeats.

No, Movement Republicans are people who not only are willing to overlook advantageous crimes, but celebrate them, if done in service to the party. Successful pundits include Iran-Contra figure Oliver North and convicted Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy -- people who, in any movement with the integrity of week-old tuna, would have been drummed out, not hired on as voices of the movement.