That Apostate Conservative Dollar Is A Good Dollar

In case you were wondering (and I know you were) what Andrew Sullivan's most popular posts were on any given day, he helpfully tracks them for you.

His 2nd most popular post yesterday began as follows:

For a long time now, the Republican party has essentially decided to ride the tiger of right-wing extremism to electoral victories and total Washington gridlock. The real action on the right side of the aisle has been on the far right, with each new anti-Obama movement and eruption out-doing the last in terms of upping the ante. Shock-jocks have defined the message, aided and abetted by key leadership figures. And so, in the latest manifestation, we have the former vice-president, Dick Cheney, telling Sean Hannity the following last night:

They peddle this line that now we’re going to pivot to Asia, but they’ve never justified it. And I think the whole thing is not driven by any change in world circumstances, it is driven by budget considerations. He would much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.

So a former vice-president is out there, saying the president prefers to spend money on food stamps than on “support for our troops.”...

Ahem.

Once again I feel obliged to point out that Mr. Sullivan's "True Conservative" critique of the state of the Party of Jefferson Davis has now become 100% interchangeable with the Liberal critique of American Conservatism going back several decades now.  Which is progress of a sort.  Or would be if Mr. Sullivan weren't so intractably committed to pretending that American Liberals and the things American Liberals have said and done all along do not exist.

It's almost as if he feared that a late-life admission of his American Liberalism would carry with it some kind of social stain.  Perhaps even impede his career.  And so instead he remains in a kind of...oh...closet, I guess you'd call it; indulging in de facto American Liberal values and beliefs on the down-low, which continuing to present a Conservative face to the world.

Holding that Conservative closet door shut with all him might, while pretending that American Liberals don't really exist.

Except for one, of course.

Except for one.

Also (and apropos of nothing) this ad on Mr. Sullivan's site just cracks me the Hell up for a lot of different reasons: