conservatism
Robert Borosage writes in American Prospect about the problems with “Conservatism Itself,” noting that “Conservatives now react to the debacle that is the Bush administration with two general strategies -- denial and disavowal:”
Each of the signature Bush follies -- Iraq, Katrina, Enron, privatization of Social Security, the Terri Schiavo case, trickle-down economics that didn't trickle -- can be traced directly to conservative ideas and the conservative think tanks and ideologues that championed them. In every case, conservatism failed, not simply because of corruption or incompetence, but because of original conception. Sensate conservatives have, in the words Irving Kristol once applied to liberals, "been mugged by reality." Actual existing conservatism fails because it gets the world wrong. And invoking Reagan offers not salvation but confirmation of that failure, for Reagan championed many of the same ideas and inflicted similar debacles on the nation.[…]
The problem isn't incompetence or deviation from the conservative course. The problem is actual existing conservatism itself. It celebrates military prowess when the threats to our security -- stateless terrorists, catastrophic climate change, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the growing gulf between rich and poor -- have no military solution. It offers no answer to a corporate sector shredding the private social contract that guaranteed many workers healthcare, pensions, job security, and family wages. It opposes the very reforms vital for our economic future -- the transition to clean energy and conservation, support of a world-class education system, and provision of affordable health care and retirement security.
After a quarter century of conservative dominance -- from Reagan to Gingrich to Bush and DeLay -- the verdict is in. Conservatives cannot be trusted to guide the government they scorn. Not because they are incompetent or corrupt (although incompetence and corruption abound), but because they get the world wrong. Their policies foster an America that is weaker and more isolated abroad, divided and more unequal at home. That was as true for Ronald Reagan, who helped give birth to this conservative era, as for George Bush, whose failed presidency should bury it. [emphases added]
Susan Douglas enumerates “The Enduring Lies of Reagan” at In These Times, similarly observing that “the current crop of candidates scramble, quite understandably, to distance themselves from the walking disaster that is George W. Bush.” Douglas lists several of the GOP myths about Saint Ronnie, with this summation:
Fabrication, lying, cruel and counterproductive policies at home and abroad, bloating of the deficit, widening the gap between rich and poor: These are the Reagan legacy. As Republican candidates seek to wear his mantle, their Democratic opponents need to remind Americans exactly what they are putting on.