The Buck Stops Over There

Sweet Zombie Jesus! I drop off the radar for four days to handle a family emergency, and the whole damn planet goes apeshit crazy.

I still haven't wrapped my head around the insanity in the Middle East, so I thought I'd just focus for now on what I know best -- the insanity here at home. These may all be old news to you by now, but if you haven't read them yet, be sure to check out Kevin Baker's piece on the tried-and-true "Stabbed in the Back" myth that conservatives will be rolling out to explain the failure in Iraq, Spencer Ackerman's TNR piece on conservative claims that Al-Qaeda has infilitrated the State Department, and Alan Wolfe's excellent piece on "Why Conservatives Can't Govern."

All three pieces are great on their own, but together they highlight a common theme running through the last fifty years of American conservatism -- their habit of blaming others for their own failures. Their foreign adventures don't crumble from their own incompetence or poor execution, but rather because some mean ol' newspaper dares to criticize them. Their domestic bungling stems not from the inherent shortcomings of modern conservatism, but because Republican leaders are tricked by liberals.

Sheesh. Whatever happened to all that talk about a return to personal responsibility after the nightmare years of Bill Clinton's reign? Does it only apply to welfare mothers?

On the bright side, many of these same conservatives are convinced that the trouble in the Middle East is a sign that the Rapture is imminent and are giddy with anticipation that they'll soon be leaving the planet. At least the rest of us can look forward to an end to all their whining.