Silly Shit Andrew Sullivan Says, Ctd.

"Someone in the GOP needs to take Bush-Cheney apart, to show how they created the debt crisis we are in, by throwing away a surplus on unaffordable tax cuts, launching two unfunded wars, and one new unfunded entitlement. They need to take on the war crimes that has deeply undermined the soul of the United States. They need to note the catastrophic negligence that gave us the worst national security lapse since Pearl Harbor (9/11) despite being warned explicitly in advance, accept weak and false intelligence to launch a war they were too incompetent to fight or win, sat back as one of the worst hurricanes all but took out a major city, and was so negligent in bank regulation that we ended up with Lehman and all that subsequently took place.

These were not minor errors. They were catastrophic misjudgments which took an era of peace, surplus and prosperity and replaced it with a dystopia of massive debt, a lawless executive branch, two unwinnable wars, and a record of war crimes that had their source in the very Oval Office.

When will the Republicans hold themselves accountable for the things that have persuaded so many that this bunch of fanatics and deniers are unfit for government? When will they speak of Bush and Cheney and repudiate them?"

-- Andrew Sullivan, 02/08/13*

Alright, now I really have gone too far. 

I mean, who but the poorest of sports would bitch about Andrew Sullivan writing something like this?  Something so self-evidently true that, if you squint your eyes just a little, could be mistaken for any of a thousand posts  written by any of a dozen Liberal bloggers at any point in the last 12 years?

Fair point, imaginary pedant!

Except...why exactly does it have to be "Someone in the GOP"?  

After all, it's not as if the typical Conservative can avoid being smacked in the face by the realities of their staggeringly bad policies and bigot-warped judgement except by increasingly Herculean acts of willful ignorance.  And it's not as if their neutronium-shield invulnerability to the slings and arrows of Reality is the result of some adolescent antic which a stern talking-to by Wise Republican Daddy is going to clear up.  

This shit is burned right onto their motherboards and their junkie-addiction to anything that can help keep terrifying reality at bay has long since become their defining psychological characteristic -- a fact that has made goons like Rush Limbaugh rich and the GOP powerful.

Or, as one shill wag put it almost exactly four years ago:

...
For decades, Conservative have also been equally open and clear about wanting to smash the federal government and replace it with an unfettered, unregulated corporate feudal state. Because Gummint is Evil, Evil, Evil! So Conservatives rolled the Bush Administration into D.C. with all its ruthless, calculated bumpkinism like a political IED and detonated it. And Conservatives cheered as their Decider smashed and bankrupted every bit of government he could lay his hands on…applauded as he hog-slaughtered the “fiscal health” of its predecessor without a backwards glance…and now fanatically oppose any action to address out economic crisis that does not begin and end with more tax cuts.

Because Conservatives HATE the government. Or don’t you remember? 

Jesus, man, it was in all the papers. For years and years and years. C’mon and work with me here.

Unbridled loathing? “Booga-Booga; the Liberal Gummint is out to get you”? Hulk Smash? Starve the beast? Drown it in the tub? 

On every radio and every teevee? 

Ring any bells?

The text or subtext of a billion tons of Conservative direct mail campaigns? 

The first paragraph of every Conservative phone-banking effort? 

Ten seconds of every thirty-second Republican campaign ad? 

The thesis statement of every wingnut begging letter and fundraiser?

The fucking Guanine and Adenine in your fucking political DNA?

And since hating government (and its Evil Liberal puppet masters) is THE central organizing principle of the Conservative Movement, how can it possibly surprise you that, as Iraq follows 9/11, Conservative policies and politicians have brought us to this moment.

That however many lies it may require and however much pain it may inflict on the public, Conservatives see economic collapse in America as a good thing. A righteous cleansing and path back to power. As their golden opportunity to finally, once-and-for-all curb-stomp the Evil Socialist Gummint into oblivion.
...

And so, again, why does Mr. Sullivan specify that a revelation which Conservatives are hardwired to ignore anyway must come though "Someone in the GOP"?  Why can't Mr. Sullivan just start listening to and extolling the people who were right all along?

Because for all of his outrage at how nuts the GOP has become, Mr. Sullivan has managed to brick himself up inside exactly the same kind of denialist dead-end as the Republican "fanatics and deniers" he denounces so vehemently.

Because, in the end, Mr. Sullivan is simply not intellectually fit or emotionally mature enough to either understand the true heart of American Conservatism or acknowledge the self-evident fact that the Liberals have been right about the Right all along. Instead, Mr. Sullivan pins his hopes on a Wise Conservative Daddy who will come and make it all better.

And thus, like Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon, does Mr. Sullivan doom himself to wait in vain for the arrival of a figment of his own imagination.

*(Thanks for the catch, W. Hackwhacker)