Thank you, conservatives

Shakespeare's Sister has an entry answering a question posed by another blogger:

[C]ould it be better that Kerry lost and the Democratic Party didn't have to take responsibility for all the messes Bush created?

Shakes' short answer is yes. I'm not sure I agree with that or with everything in her long answer, but it's worth reading.

Conservatives have been doggedly pursuing this moment for a generation, and I don’t think anything was capable of stopping them, except for what’s happening now—an exposure of their radical and heartless agenda for exactly what it is. It’s not just that Bush is incompetent (although he is), but that the conservative philosophy is fundamentally flawed and irreparably ill-suited to a liberal democracy.

I think it's worth adding this to the equation. What I suspect has conservatives gnashing their teeth at night in the dark is this: After, as Shakes says, pursuing this moment for a generation, they pinned their hopes on an incompetent. Thus virtually ensuring those hopes would be dashed.

The "conservative philosophy," such as it is, may or may not be "fundamentally flawed and irreparably ill-suited to a liberal democracy." But with Bush in charge, it was never going to be able to stand for very long. And who put Bush in charge of the conservative philosophy?

The answer to the question of could there be a worse President for America than Bush is: Yes. Picture, if you can, a competent Bush. Someone equally corrupt, compromised, right-wing and conservative--but who knows what he's doing.

Chilling, isn't it? For that reason, we must thank conservatives for putting all their eggs into a basket with holes in the bottom. That's why they're now-splat-laying them all over the place. They decided that Bush should be the Republican party, to the country, and the world.

And he is. And the chickens, as they say, are coming home to roost. And the people are noticing that the eggs weren't exactly golden to begin with.

PS: Also thanks to Shakes for remembering something I sometimes think I'm the only one who remembers; the tide did not turn with the Supreme Court nominations or even Katrina...

Only in its wanton and unchecked application were [the conservative philosophy's]intrinsic defects and hypocrisies laid bare to the average American; it’s wise to remember, the first widespread revolt against the current power-holders centered around a woman named Terri Schiavo. She was the beginning of their (domestic) end, long before a hurricane named Katrina.