I am a regular newspaper reader and a former republican. Yesterday I found this gem by Leonard Pitts Jr. in the Detroit Free Press. Mr. Pitts is right on here about what has become the direction of the party in the last 15 years. I say this as a disheartened, former republican, one who believed in states rights, small government and individual responsibility. These concepts and others once the backbone of the party have been twisted, abandoned and corrupted by the current party, the standing administration and McCain.

So it seems George W. Bush is not really conservative.

Nor are Mitt Romney, John McCain and, indeed, the vast majority of the Republican Party. Or so I'm told by a number of readers who took exception to a recent column lambasting Romney for his speech at the GOP convention. In it, Romney declared that the way to fix Washington is to turn it over to conservatives. If you didn't know any better, said I, you'd think conservatives had not been in charge most of the last decade. This kind of babblespeak, I argued, has become increasingly characteristic of the political right.

Except, according to my correspondents, those conservatives in charge weren't really conservative at all. As Roy from Sanger, Calif., put it in an e-mail: "If you believe what we have had in D.C. so far this century is a conservative Washington, your perceptions are colored by a memory loss of what real conservatism looks like. Bring back to life 'real' conservatives who died before 1996, and they would think only one party ruled in D.C. now, the tax and spend, spend and spend some more party."

The funny thing is, I agree. Stack the traditional definition of "conservative" alongside the events of the last few years, and it's hard not to. It is, for example, difficult to find evidence of government getting out of people's way in the Terri Schiavo affair. Or evidence of lean, mean government efficiency in the Hurricane Katrina debacle. Or evidence of fiscal restraint in a projected $500-billion budget deficit. Or evidence of foreign policy pragmatism in the invasion of a country that had not attacked us and did not threaten to. Or evidence of accountability in the eagerness to duck blame for all the above.

Conservatism, an ideology once driven by principle, has shrunk until its purview can be delineated in three syllables: God, guns, gays. Worse, it has embraced a win-at-all-costs ethos and intellectual dishonesty that are, even by the seamy standards of modern politics, astonishing.

To pick just one of many available illustrations: Last month, Karl Rove praised the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate, citing, among other things, her two years as governor of Alaska and her experience as mayor of Wasilla, which has a population smaller than some apartment complexes. This came a few weeks after Rove said Tim Kaine was unfit to be Barack Obama's running mate because he, Kaine, had been governor of Virginia "only" two years, before which he was mayor of Richmond, which, with about 200,000 residents, is "not a big town."

Now I don't care what your ideology is, you cannot define that as anything but hypocrisy. If true conservatives hate seeing that kind of duplicity associated with conservatism, I understand. But I have a question for them: Where have you been the last 15 years? Where were you when conservatism was untethered from principle, unhooked from reality? Where were you when it became smug and self-righteous, when it traded its integrity for situational outrage, its credibility for angry certitude, its honor for ballot box success? Where were you when it sold out to evangelicals and anti-intellectuals? Where were you when it got hijacked?

American Muslims are often challenged to speak out against extremists in their religion, but for my money, that challenge can more fairly be leveled at those people Roy calls real conservatives. They sat silent as their principles were discarded, as their very name was stolen and used to drive the country off a cliff. I hope e-mails like Roy's mean their long silence is about to be broken, but I have some advice for him and anyone else who doesn't think the Republicans are truly conservative:

Don't tell me. Tell the Republicans.

First, thats an excellent post.

Not all the Conservatives have wilted into the background. From Ron Paul to Pat Buchanan to Barry Goldwater Jr., the Real conservatives have been forced into a corner by the big money, corrupted Globalism loving NeoCons.
As a Traditional Conservative, I've had absolutely no qualms what so ever in speaking out and pointing out that the GOP is no longer the Grand Old Party, but instead it is now Guilty Of Plenty. NeoConservatism has linked traditional conservatives with a platform that we absolutely detest and, for those of us with the testicular fortitude, will not sit idly by while our nation is and has been run roughshod on by these imposters.

Not to worry, the Campaign For Liberty continues to grow at an exponential rate and there isn't a darn thing the NeoCon and Ultra Lib globalists can do about it.
Oh, and 15 years ago, I was in a high school getting my math and reading, while being brainwashed with Revisionist history. LOL!

I'll continue to stand up against this crap, if you will!

Let's see.

the liberal left brought on Al Gore.

brilliant! like that was so special.

then they parade a disgruntled Vietnam vet, Kerry, as the next latest and greatest. But he was bent with the very party he represents back then, since it was the imbicile LBJ that got the US Soldier mired in a mess that Kennedy was to weak and emascullated to extricate this nation from on his protracted watch, believing as he did in the United Natons and a US role as cop on the mean streets for that idiotic parody gone awry.


The only thig the libttards are good at is crying foul, deflecting responsibility, transferring and projecting their delusions on others, sitting back like arm chair quarterbacks and generally exascerbating their exasperation with themselves.

They have absolutely no clue as to what constitutes conservativism.


But it is a gem of an article.

Detroit is a jewel in the crown of present day America too.

Glad to see the press is "free" in Detroit.

Food isn't.

Homes almost are, though.



oh well..........

haha WOW

So, rather than examine what's wrong with the republican party you bring up Kerry, Gore and criticize Detroit?

"They have absolutely no clue as to what constitutes conservativism."

I beg to differ.

Conservatism in past was about financial and person responsibility, small government, and states rights. That is until some political strategist figured out they could play on the fears of the religious right and suck up their votes. Oh, what has the republican party, despite holding the presidency and a majority in congress until fairly recently, done for the religious right? Very little actually. Know why? Because they don't care about the flock they just want the votes of the scared little sheep.

I know what fear mongering, cheap distractions and deliberate ignorance is. I see examples of it here daily. To bad so many can't see it but then again I guess when you are a sheep you follow and jump instead of thinking for yourself.

Well, there you go, you want some proof about a manipulated system, why would you present a Kerry, when you had a Howard Dean, who had excellent grassroots support or a Edwards who has been a champion against poverty?

Howard Dean went down to a ARRGGHH, and Edwards went down because he appeared to be a very vanilla candidate in a party primary that wanted Chocolate swirl and candy sprinkles.


No pun intended.

Now the GOP is running McCain-Where charisma goes to die against Captain Charisma himself.

It's going to seem hardly fair, when the debates start, the Presidential nominees will be no contest, but Sarah Baracuda against Joey the Shark, that's going to be fun to watch.

yup.

Not just in the past,currently as well.

Conservatism is also about sound money, noninterventionist foriegn policy, obeying the constitution and protecting the Soveriegnty of our Country.