About douche tea baggers:
Commenting on an upcoming book my Canadian counterpart comes up with a gold nugget.
Much of the professionally stupid Republican blogosphere is going absolutely insane over the following excerpt from the Latimer book.
Bush was preparing to give a speech to the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The conference is the event of the year for conservative activists; Republican politicians are required to appear and offer their praise of the conservative movement.
Latimer got the assignment to write Bush’s speech. Draft in hand, he and a few other writers met with the president in the Oval Office. Bush was decidedly unenthusiastic.
"What is this movement you keep talking about in the speech?" the president asked Latimer.
Latimer explained that he meant the conservative movement — the movement that gave rise to groups like CPAC.
Bush seemed perplexed. Latimer elaborated a bit more. Then Bush leaned forward, with a point to make.
"Let me tell you something," the president said. "I whupped Gary Bauer’s ass in 2000. So take out all this movement stuff. There is no movement."
Yep there is no movement-except one who likes the taste of sand in their mouths. My Canadian counterpart has aptly described what that experience must be like:
In my mind, there’s always been a profound difference between conservatism and Republicanism. Conservatism is primarily about restraint. As Joe Scarborough keeps pointing out, it has classically been predicated on fiscal restraint, restraint in foreign policy, and restraint in rhetoric. Does that sound like any prominent Republican in the last thirty or so years?
No it doesn’t. Republicanism is based on the idea of keeping Jesus freaks and investment bankers happy, regardless of the cost. If doing so shreds the concept of federalism or blows giant holes in the deficit, no biggie. At least they won the election. And they won a lot of elections that way. Until they didn’t.
If you’re at all interested in why I can’t bring myself to take these Tea Party idiots seriously, it’s because they have no credibility whatsoever. The second President Bush spent more money than his seven immediate predecessors combined, but the tea-baggers only seem to have discovered fiscal discipline in January. Furthermore, most of them still applaud Bush’s insane and generally illegal national security policies, none of which were actually conservative under any sane definition of the word.
The Tea Partiers therefore aren’t conservatives as much as they’re assholes.