Krugman: “My God, what have we done?”

Crossposed from the orange place

No, not a question for us, but Conservatives for themselves, at least, according to Paul Krugman.

Krugman’s provocative conclusion:

Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir.

This has been my opinion for some time, and today’s column gives every indication that Krugman’s next book will be a must read.

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What are the roots of this, Krugman asks? Try Barry Goldwater:

People claim to be shocked by the Bush administration’s general incompetence. But disinterest in good government has long been a principle of modern conservatism. In “The Conscience of a Conservative,” published in 1960, Barry Goldwater wrote that “I have little interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size.”

In other words, as many people on Daily Kos have been saying for some time, Grover Norquist’s admonition that government must be small enough to be drowned in a bathtub is both the method and the goal of modern Conservatism.

As for the media strategy? There’s nothing new under the Conservative sun:

People claim to be shocked at the Bush administration’s attempts – which, for a time, were all too successful – to intimidate the press. But this administration’s media tactics, and to a large extent the people implementing those tactics, come straight out of the Nixon administration. Dick Cheney wanted to search Seymour Hersh’s apartment, not last week, but in 1975. Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News, was Nixon’s media adviser.

I won’t exceprt any more, as Times Select is gone (dead baby!), and you really ought to read the whole thing. I see Krugman is an exceptional ally in cataloguing the abuses of Bush and his movement; he has been doing so at least since The Great Unraveling (I was given a signed copy as a gift several years ago).

I also see this column as an excellent corollary to Kid Oakland’s latest diary: beyond left and right, which you should also go read. (I command!)

  eugene (over orange way) echoes a thought I had but didn’t write myself: 

This is largely a response to David Brooks (1+ / 0-)
Who argued last week that Bush was simply someone who strayed from basic conservative principles. What Krugman has done is to tell Brooks he is full of shit; that Bush has governed EXACTLY as the conservatives wanted him to.

Folks like Brooks believe that because they broke America…we should turn to them to fix it. A complete crock .

I’m not part of a redneck agenda – Green Day

by eugene on Mon Oct 08, 2007 at 12:35:28 AM EDT
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  Quite.