The Opposite of "Delphic"

Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.

From Andrew Sullivan:

David Frum likewise sees danger for the GOP. I remain of the view that the extremism of the right - their refusal to accept that in a divided government, there has to be some give and take - is related to what I called a "cold civil war."

...
This Nixonian achievement has turned the GOP into the party of the South - a minority country within a country. With no ability to communicate within the Democratic party to bring the South and the rest of the country together, we have stalemate. Recall that the map of the 2008 presidential election was almost identical to the map of the states in the Civil War, with now Northern-infiltrated Virginia and Florida the only exceptions. And that, to my mind, is why we don't just have a refusal to compromise; we have an essential refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the president or the Senate, because they are not controlled by the South. Heaven knows how this dynamic is made worse by having a miscegenated president. But I do not doubt that, somewhere in the psyche, it has to be. Hence the whole birth certificate/Muslim/Kenyan fantasies.

And so the whole promise of post-partisan Obama founders on the determination of one faction to bring him down, regardless of the costs - even to themselves. I have not yet seen Obama so perfectly forced into Lincoln's position: trying desperately to accommodate a force that refuses to be accommodated, except by dictating the national outcome of every debate. But their rage will not be assuaged by appeasement.
…

Note the word: "Nixonian".

As in "This shit has been going on since the reign of Richard Nixon."

Which begs the same question I have been asking of our Conservative Expatriates since forever: "Wow. This shit has been going on since before Andrew Sullivan was in long pants. How in the fuck did he manage to miss it?"

Anonymous Mike.K. in a previous comment thread makes this observation:

I really think Sullivan's problem... OK, his main problem in this political crap, is that he did not grow up in the U.S.A.

I honestly get the sense that deep down, really and truly, he doesn't believe that the religious right is the batshit crazy group of arsonists, bombers, and psychopaths that they really are. I, as someone who grew up in the U.S., know that they really and truly believe that everyone else is wrong, and deserves the raining Hell-fire Jesus will send upon them in the End of Days, and if they can start enough wars and bomb enough clinics and lynch enough educated people, Jesus will have to start the End Times and show up early so he will have enough people to blast into Hell to satisfy his blood-lust. (Apologies for the gratuitously long sentence.)

He, as British, thinks that those people can't be *that* crazy, and the intellectuals like him can keep them properly banished to the fringes. When I have heard him speak, he genuinely always seems to be surprised that Christians who are Republicans genuinely harbor so much blind and pointless hatred for him, and Republicans who are Christians give the former so much power. He still thinks they can be decanted from the mix, and doesn't realize it's one big frothy and incestuous well-blended Santorum.

(And bonus points for using it in a sentence.)
"""""

Which I tend to buy.

Mr. Sullivan, like David Brooks (Canadian), David Frum (also Canadian) and Ayn Rand (Soviet Union) all were shaped by political ecosystems that were between somewhat-and-radically different than the ones you'll find here in the United States. They all came trailing all of this misshapen baggage. They all pounded it into my native soil whether it fit or not. And most importantly, they all became the very well-compensated Useful Idiots (or, in Rand's case, the Hive Queen) of some loathsome people with depraved ideas.

They got it wrong from the start and have been wrong ever since, and if they had never become apologists, spokes-models and lawn-jockeys for gorgons, I would not have a problem with them. But they did. They profited from their stupidity and complicity, and they continue to profit from their Conservative Movement Gold Membership Cards long, long after it was abundantly clear that their movement was monstrous and their precious ideological pearls were lies.

Lies that -- ahem -- Liberals have tried to point out to them over and over and over again.

Which is why the sight of Andrew Sullivan and David Frum freaking out over the fact that the vast majority of their Conservative movement are as crazy as a betsy bug -- a fact about which Liberals have been steadfastly right and reviled for decades by people like Mr. Sullivan; a fact that Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Frum and the rest of their little clutch of precious Conservative bedtime storytellers have steadfastly disregarded and gotten completely wrong for most of their lives -- is hilarious.

Accountability begins at home, Mr. Sullivan, so how are you going to pay for the monster you helped create? What are you going to do to atone?

Or year after year it it just going to be more repetitions of The Prayer of Andrew Sullivan?

Dear Jebus,

Please continue to make it possible for me to make a nice living at a job where I simply repeat as breathless epiphanies observation, which – when made by those dirty Liberals one million times over the last 30 years -- I have alternately ignored or derided.

Also, I would like to help my equally, spectacularly wrong ideological running buddies to ride along on you Holy Gravy Train gravy train. I owe them favors, and this would be a great help to me.

Also, I would like to be on teevee a lot without anyone ever asking me any tough questions about my long record of being so very wrong about so very much.

Also I would like a pony.

God Bless Mommy and Daddy and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Amen