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[Ya-ta Boy]

Last month when I was in Guam I came across John Dean�s �Conservatives Without Conscience� (Viking Penguin Press 2006). I am sufficiently impressed with it to think that others would enjoy what he has to say. For anyone who is going, �John Dean, John Dean�I know that name�� He was a White House legal advisor to Nixon and a key Watergate figure.

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From the Preface (pp xxxii-xxxv):

Conservatives attracted to conspicuously false history�and conservatives with the mentality of a lynch mob, were foreign to me, but they certainly got my attention. In now writing about them, by myself, I am not proceeding as this project was initially conceived. It started as a joint undertaking with the late US senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona, whom I had the good fortune of knowing almost his entire political career. His oldest son, Barry Jr., has been my close friend since the early 1950s, when we were roommates at Staunton Military Academy in Virginia, which was also the senator�s high school alma mater. Senator Goldwater was elected to the US Senate in 1952, resigned in 1964 to pursue an unsuccessful bid for the presidency as the Republican Party�s standard-bearer, and was reelected to the Senate in 1968, where he served until his retirement in 1985. After leaving the Senate he remained active and interested in Republican politics until his death in 1998.

I discovered Senator Goldwater�s political thinking during my college years, when, like countless other college students of the early 1960s I read his book �The Conscience of a Conservative� and experienced a political awakening. The senator made conservatism respectable, unlike the witch-hunting Senator Joe McCarthy and the screwball absurdities of the John Birch Society. Senator Goldwater�s conservatism was sensible and straightforward, and therefore appealing. Given the influence he had on my thinking, as well as my admiration for him, it is not surprising that I still consider myself to be a �Goldwater conservative� on many issues. Be that as it may, while my core beliefs have not changed significantly in the past forty years, the Grand Old Party to which I once belonged has moved so far to the right, that on the contemporary political spectrum I now often fall to the left of the Republican center. Like many Republicans uncomfortable with the right-wing extremists who control the party, I reregistered as an Independent.

It was not Senator Goldwater�s politics, however, that prompted me to call him after the 1994 midterm elections, when the Republicans won control of Congress for the first time in forty years. I called to solicit his thoughts about [some litigation against G. Gordon Liddy]�He was aware of the attacks on Mo [Dean�s wife, Maureen], and he immediately put our situation into a larger context, while counseling that we vigorously pursue the litigation.

�I heard that jackass Liddy on one of the talk-radio shows,� the senator told me. �I don�t think anyone believes him, John. He�s a fool.� �Frankly, I find it offensive that he calls himself a conservative,� the senator added.
�Why�s that?� I asked.
�Why? I�ll tell you why. Because he thinks like a thug, not like a conservative. Conservatives seek the wisdom of the past, not the worst of it,� he snapped. He continued, �I was talking with [former Arizona Republican congressman and former minority leader of the House of Representatives] Johnny Rhodes, just a few days ago. He�s still got the ear of the House Republican leaders. I asked him to tell those fellows back in Washington that I don�t go along with their incivility. I told them they should back off on their attacks on Hillary Clinton. They�re acting like jerks too, not conservatives. If they don�t, I�m going to blast them. They�re driving decent people out of public service. And they�re turning off voters. It�s dirty politics, and it should end.�
�Why do you suppose that they do this?� I asked.
Without hesitation he said, �It�s these so-called social or cultural conservatives. And I don�t know what in hell possesses them. I�d like to find out.� �

When I called Senator Goldwater I had only recently learned more about Chuck Colson�s involvement [with the litigation]. I asked the senator for his thoughts on Christian conservatives like Colson, and their increasing presence in Republican politics, and he minced no words. �Goddamn it, John,� he began, with a combination of anger, frustration, and sorrow, �the Republicans are selling their soul to win elections.� He saw trouble coming. �Mark my word,� he said, �if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they�re sure trying to do so, it�s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won�t work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can�t and won�t compromise. I know, I�ve tried to deal with them.� He had absolutely no doubt that these people made Washington more divisive then it had ever been, and he was concerned that their divisiveness was spreading throughout the country.

My conversations with Senator Goldwater evolved into a plan to write a book together about so-called social conservatives. We would attempt to understand their strident and intolerant politics by talking with people like Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell. We would learn more about their thinking, and try to determine whether they appreciated what they were doing to conservatism and to Republican politics. We would title our book �Conservatives Without Conscience�, an obvious allusion to Senator Goldwater�s classic. But we had not progressed very deeply into our work before I realized it could become a burden for the senator, whose physical health was rapidly failing. I slowed the project down and soon had to place it on the shelf, hoping to resume when the senator felt better. Sadly, that did not happen, but because I wanted answers, I could not abandon our task. I wanted to understand why these so-called conservatives acted in such a conspicuously unattractive manner. What caused their aggression and the hostility that was changing the nature of politics? Our litigation and my experiences during the Clinton impeachment proceedings continued to provide insights into conservative thinking, and it was not attractive. But it was my even closer look at Washington after the 2000 election, when writing about Bush and Cheyney, that convinced me I had to find answers. The serious deterioration and disintegration of conservative principles under Bush and Cheyney, in all branches of the federal government, with the striking shift toward a very un-American-type of authoritarianism, compelled me to complete the project I had begun with Senator Goldwater.

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I�m curious how the conservatives on this board feel about 1) Goldwater/Dean�s allegation that it is they who are responsible for the divisiveness in the country through their �strident and intolerant politics� and 2) that there has been �a serious deterioration and disintegration of conservative principles under Bush and Cheyney, in all branches of the federal government, with the striking shift toward a very un-American-type of authoritarianism�.

[EFLtrainer]

"If you're not with us, you're against us!!!", no doubt. Goldwater, after all, was not a patriot!

[Ya-ta Boy]

Can I interpret the thundering silence from the resident conservatives as evidence that you only know what to say when Rush and Bill tell you the talking points of the day?

[EFLtrainer]

As well as noting that the only thing they ahve to say about Bush and 9/11 is that everyone else is a traitor or loves Bin Laden.

Fucking idiots.

[dulouz]

We have too many civil rights. Civil rights are annoying, I'm glad they are being lopped off. I don't care for the drug tests but beyond that, they can have 'em. You only need civil rights if you have something to hide.

[EFLtrainer]