As a conservative [no matter how reluctant I am to admit it], I was definitely happy with the GOP taking the New Jersey and Virginia statehouses this past Tuesday. I was even more gratified by the fact that such a die-hard conservative as Virginia Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell being smart enough to downplay any ties with his ostensible comrades [sic]-in-arms Ralph Reed and Sarah Palin, realizing that gaining credibility may even be more important than electoral gains.
In contrast, the response to the loss of the the 23rd Congressional district in New York—and the assertion that “we won even thought we lost”—indicates that the Republicans seem to have forgotten even how to deal with any success.
It is to be expected that conservatives may be reluctant to handle any kind of success in the current econo-political climate: already being held responsible for the mess as it is, they’re extremely reluctant to assume any more responsibility than they have to. In a sense, what this indicates is a continuing ideological purge occurring among conservatives and the GOP, which may be more analogous to a Stalinist rather than McCarthyist ideology.
Of course, one might trace this fear of success and the concomitant loss of credibility all the way back to--“Mission Accomplished”. Never mind that the wrong country may have been invaded for either manufactured or misread reasons. The simple notion that the work was done once the Iraqi army was routed may itself have been the root of the former administration’s attitude of entitlement and invincibility, and the surprise and consequent lack of preparation for everything that followed.
Add that to the “Vietnam syndrome” once again rearing its ugly head as the Penatgon dithered as the conflict went on, and the McCarthyism hurt the important cause of anticommunism a lot more than it had helped it, and the conservative attitude problem may be more trenchant than anyone thinks. I can only hope that Virginia and New Jersey would serve as the start of the tides turning. Unfortunately, the GOP is acting as if the tides have been in their favor all along.
Today’s atrocity at Fort Hood, and the media’s—and even possibly the Army’s—response to it may partially be reflected by the aforementioned paralysis and fear of responsibility, which is not restricted to conservatives, but has become an inexorable part of how important parts of the country functions. The first was demonstrated by the conflicting reports coming out of the Army regarding what happened to the shooter and the heroic woman who actually may have stopped the massacre from going too far along; the second was the Army’s reluctance to make any reference to the possible motivation of the shooter, which, when you take the historical forces attributed to Vietnamism, McCarthyism, and the political correctness paralysis that resulted, has kept the Army from even hinting at his possible ethnically and/or religiously driven “grievances”. [That was left to the “fair and balanced” Fox news.]
I’d go a step further: the major reason that Americans can no longer identify their most mortal enemy [remember that even after 9/11 President Bush was referring to the faith of the hijackers as a “religion of peace”] is that we blew our credibility so many times in the past that “bleeding hearts” with any historical consciousness can remind us of our past “sins” often enough that we who know better are either paralyzed by it or motivated to work against our own interests.
One can only hope that Fort Hood might change this particular reluctance and saddle knee-jerk Saidist/Chomskyist progressivism with the same degree of lack of credibility that the GOP currently suffers from. Unfortunately, the forces militating against that go back further than we realize. 9/11 didn’t change it; this probably won’t either.
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