Nowhere To Hide

by digby

One of the more refreshing developments in the last year or so has been the total immolation of the phony concept of “principled conservatism.” With the Bush meltdown, the corruption, the incompetence and the continuing support among the leadership and the base for all of it, we no longer have to endure the stupid fiction that Republicans stand for anything other than their shared hatred for liberals and their desire to steal the taxpayers blind. Our long national nightmare of listening to them drone on and on about how liberals will say and do anything to win, how they have no ethics, morals and principles, how they flip-flop in the wind is over.

Observe how Pat Buchanan, Mike Barnicle and Chris Matthews demonstrate that conservatism is a fraud on today’s “Hardball”:

CM: …But let’s take a look at two different clips, perhaps two different Romney’s floating around YouTube right now. The first was posted by opponents of Mitt Romney, the second is Romney’s YouTube response:

Video of Romney: I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I feel that all people should be allowed to participate in the boy scouts regardless of their sexual orientation.

Video of Romney: I was wrong on issues back then. I’m embarrassed to admit that. I think most of us learn with experience. I know I certainly have..

CM: The phrase that’s a problem here Pat Buchanan and Mike Barnicle is “back then,” back then in 2004.

MB: Yeah, not only was it in 2004, thre’s all sorts of fodder for Romney and he’s going to have to explain his ideological journey from 1994 not just 2004, but again, as you can see on those clips he is capable of doing it. It would be think for evangelicals and the Christian Conservatives and the Republican side to decide no matter whether it’s Romney or Rudy Giuliani, do you what hardline doctrinaire ideology or do you want to win? Do you want the aforementioned Hillary Clinton? Can Romney do it?

CM: You’re treating him like he’s a trade from the Patriots to somebody out west, to the Utah Jazz or something, — a cross reference there — I mean do you think it’s that easy to just change uniforms and the other side’s glad to have you?

MB: No. no. It’s not that easy.

CM: Alan Iverson is going to go play for Colorado and they’ll be glad to have him, but can you do that in politics?

MB: Well we’re gonna see if Romney can dribble behyind his back, huh?

PB: And Chris, if Iverson joined the priesthood, that would be a similar change. Look, I think this, look, clearly Romney’s position is 180 degress from what it was. If I were him I wouldn’t say “I evolved,” I would say “I changed my mind.” What he has going for him is that there’s an enormous vacuum on the Reagan right. Reagan was a believer in these things and Giuliani and McCain and Romney are all suspect. But they’re the three front runners and they’re running into that vacuum — and some lower conservatives are trying to get up into it — so that’s what gives Romney the possibility of winning some of those votes.

CM: But what does it mean Pat, you’re an ideologue, what does it mean he’s just denying … he’s got an anullment of his past beliefs, I mean, is it like Rudy dumping three wives fromk history? How can you dump from your past your entire ideological rap sheet and just say that doesn’t matter, never mind. How do you do that

PB: Very simple. These are not conviction politicians. They are politicians trying for the nomination of a party which is conservative and traditionalist which is [against] a lot of what they believe … argued and said, so they are accomodating themselves to the party. Is it sincere? I don’t know but everybody knows what’s going on.

CM: You’re being generous. This is like th kind of conversion you have in
Spain in the old bad days where if you were Jewish you were Christian the next day or you were burned alive, I mean, what kind of conversion are we talking about here Mike?

PB: (laughing) We don’t do that in the Republican Party anymore.

CM: …what kind of conversion are we talking about whereby a person can simply say “I swear to God I never believed what I believe.”

PB: Do I believe that these are sincere honest conversion of Rudy or, uuh,
Romney, in my judgment, probably not. They’re changing their positions for political reasons and you’ve got to accept that or you’ve got to take the alternative which may be Hillary Rodham Clinton.

CM: Wow. Pretty rough stuff here.

MB: You cross your fingers if you’re Mitt Romney and you fib or you lie, depending on your point of view. From 1994 he stood next to Ted Kennedy in a debate for the US Senate in Massachusetts and said at one point he felt he could do more for the gay community than Ted Kennedy could. So what do you do about that with the evangelicals? I don’t know. You lie.

CM: I don’t know what to make of this. It seems to me that you could change religions on this spot. You could go from Mormanism to Baptist. To use your favorite phrase from the past, if we’re all engaged in cross dressing how do you believe what anybody’s costume really is?

PB: I’ll say this about Romney. He hasn’t denied he took those positions. We’ve seen them all. He’s taken a new position now. You know George Bush Sr was pro-choice in 79 or 80. He came and ran and said I will be pro-life and if you look at the positions he took from 89 to 93 he was totally faithful to the prolife position…

CM: .. yeah

PB: …even though in his heart I don’t think he really believed it. I think that’s the situation you’ve got. Rudy says, I’ll give you Scalia and judges like that and we know how they’ll vote on abortion.

CM: So is Senator Allen now able to reclaim his senate seat by saying “I never said macaca?”

PB: No he’s gone…

CM: That’s all you have to do is deny, right?

PB: Well he can’t deny it. YouTube’s got it.

CM: We’ll be right back. This sounds hilarious, but it’s not. Pat, you
are a man of principle not necessarily good principles, but thanks you, Pat
Buchaqnan, Mike Barnicle…

Matthews seems to be truly surprised that Buchanan has completely thrown in he towel on any kind of ideological integrity. But c’mon. It’s been like this since at least Nixon. And Buchanan, Nixon’s creature, like modern conservatism as a whole, is a product of the Watergate white house. (Don’t take my word for it. Read this, by Rick Perlstein.) It’s just that they’ve made such a fetish of their allegedly religious and ideological purity the last few years that now their machinations look particularly hypocritical to anyone but their hardcore supporters. But that’s who they are fighting for right now, after all; they know just how to (dog) whistle that tune.

For instance, Mitt pulled a Reagan today and gave his announcement speech at a venue that honors one of the most notorious anti-semites in American history. Jewish organizations protested, he went ahead anyway and the NY Times didn’t even mention the flap. (Maybe if he’d blogged about it they would have found it worthy of a story.) But you can bet that the mouth-breathing racist neanderthals of the GOP base got the message. Ole Mitt knows what signals to send and that’s all that matters.Ain’t no libruls gonna push him around.

I have no doubt that the GOP faithful will eventually enthusiastically vote for Rudy, Mitt or St. John, even if all three appear at the debates in feather tutus and french kiss each other on the stage. All that matters is which one will beat the dirty hippies. Good old Pat let the cat out of the bag today and just as Felix Allen can’t take back his macaca moment, neither can Buchanan. He said it: “everybody knows what’s going on.”

Well, everyone but Chris Matthews who was shocked today by what he heard. But he’ll get over it:

CM: So Pat Buchanan, what do you make of Mitt Romney’s personality? Because he’s a real unknown in this race?

PB: Everything I know about Romney speaks very well of that. I’ve got a lot of friends who say he lights up a room when he comes in. He’s got a fine personality, he’s friendly, he’s an extremely handsome man as his father was. And he’s always got a big smile. I think in the personality contest, he’s all over Hillary.

CM: He’s got a great chin, I’ve noticed. Does that mean he might not have
a glass jaw?

Notice how throughout the discussion of the flip-flopping Republican candidates lying as easily as they breathe to the dipshit phonies who make up the Republican base, not one person used the word “calculating” to describe any of them.

It’s still going to be a long campaign.

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