Quote of the Day

Blogger extraordinare Mark Kleiman makes a good point about the stupidity of Democratic campaigning tactics, as well as the modern American political system. He writes-

"Hillary Clinton told an Iowa crowd that George W. Bush is 'radical' rather than 'conservative.' Politically, this strikes me as dumb. Bush isn't going to be on the ballot next year, but lots of people who call themselves 'conservative' will be, and there's no reason for Democrats to help them make Bush their scapegoat... The right wing of the Republican Party owns Bush, and the Democrats shouldn't let anyone forget it...

...But Bush is hardly unique [in regards to what Hillary said]. Today's Republican party is plutocratic, authoritarian, theocratic, racist, nativist, militarist, and imperialist, but hardly conservative except in the sense of being reluctant to reform entrenched abuses. You could throw rocks at random at the ten clowns who line up at the podia for a Republican Presidential debate and never risk hitting an actual conservative, though you couldn't avoid hitting a Reagan-worshipper. It's American conservatism that is no longer conservative, not merely George W. Bush.

That's too bad: the conservative impulse is just as necessary to a properly balanced political system as the progressive one."

What he said.