Why does William F. Buckley, Jr.

Hate America?

This from Progenitor Conservative and professional petit éminence grise, Bill Buckley (passed along by our own Dr. BopperTHP), would have provided the “Walter Cronkite Moment” among conservatives a generation ago.

An acknowledgement by one of the Big Giant Heads of the Consie Movement of what was self-evident to normal humans two years ago -- that we have lost in Iraq, and that every day we linger there makes the situation worse -- would have driven a redwood-sized stake into the heart of the Keyboard Kommandos and Koolaidians, were this all happening in, say, the Seventies.

But of course this is 2006, and we have all lived through five painful years of near-daily crisis, criminal incompetence, corruption, lies and treason at every level of the Republican Government at a scale that dwarfs -- by any measure -- anything the Dems have ever been guilty of in living memory.

And of course, buttressing the long, sad litany of Republican High Crimes and failures -- always riding reliably alongside GOP treachery like the Horsemen of War, Famine and Pestilence -- has been the chittering applause of the fascistically inclined Rat People who make up the GOP rank and file, and an absolutely deafening, willful silence from the Vaseline-spined Press and the Republican Congress.

The Congress -- responsible for holding the Executive branch to account for it’s actions -- and the Press –- responsible for rigorously investigating the government and helping to keep the public informed – have both been completely AWOL during this time of war. In what I can only compare to very worst traditions of the CPSU and Pravda, these same people who hunted Democratic President Bill Clinton for seven, long years over trivia, have utterly abandoned their duties, and have shown nothing in the last five years but a steadfast and craven refusal to investigate and report on the serial catastrophes of the Bush White House.

They have failed us all and disgraced themselves unforgivably.

So a generation ago, this column by Buckley may have tipped the scales, but in 2006 we are deep in the terrible shadow of the Age of Dubya.

And in the Age of Dubya, the GOP has gone stark, raving nuts.

In the Age of Dubya, the Party of God hasn’t just fallen down the rabbit hole, but has positively hurled itself down into darkness with JATO units strapped to their little, webbed feet to help rocket them to the bottom faster.

In the Age of Dubya, rabid weasels like Coulter and Hannity and Falwell speak for the Party and enforce Orthodoxy with a sledgehammer, and however untouchably revered Buckley might have been in Conservative circles a week ago doesn’t matter. He can become just another Swiftboated unperson in the twinkling of an eye because in the Age of Dubya, Truth and Principle have long ago been bound and gagged and duct-taped into a duffle-bag in the trunk of the GOP Deathmobile.

In the Age of Dubya, the only Evil is to speak against the Dear Leader no matter how lunatic and patently ridiculous his lies may be, and the only Good is blind Loyalty to the Dear Leader.

Because in the Age of Dubya, you can either be a Good American, or a Good Republican, but you can no longer be both.

So file this under "Duh", and cross-index under, "Well you certainly took your sweet fucking time, didn't you?"

IT DIDN'T WORK

By William F. Buckley Jr. Fri Feb 24, 9:05 PM ET

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes -- it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunnis and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samarra and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that "the bombing has completely demolished" what was being attempted -- to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each other's throats.

A problem for American policymakers -- for President Bush, ultimately -- is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.

…
Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

He will certainly face the current development as military leaders are expected to do: They are called upon to acknowledge a tactical setback, but to insist on the survival of strategic policies.

Yes, but within their own counsels, different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgment of defeat.

And as a public service to those of you on-the-goers who don't want to wade into Buckleyese this afternoon, this shorter version of Big Bill's article:

As 49 million Americans warned you, the Dear Leader has now lied himself and this country right off the proverbial cliff Wile E. Coyote style.

And as 49 million Americans warned you, while the bizarre GOP strategy of simply refusing to look down and hoping that will keep us aloft might seem viable in cartoons or in your Jebus-For-Dummies anti-religion, it doesn’t actually work out here in the Real World where cause and effect will have its merry way with you every, single fucking time.

And now that Buckley can actually feel the wind from our accelerating fall whipping through his comb-over, he thinks maybe someone should maybe do something about it.