WRONG TRACK

There is a current ground swell of articles on the decline of true conservatism and the rise of dysfunctional partisanship (blamed mostly on the "new new" conservatives).
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_145/Different_About_the_New_New_Right-215042-1.html
http://billmoyers.com/episode/encore-how-do-conservatives-and-liberals-see-the-world/

There is also a new book making the rounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U6rcJOUQLM
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/151522725/even-worse-than-it-looks-extremism-in-congress
http://www.amazon.com/Even-Worse-Than-Looks-Constitutional/dp/0465031331
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-4-2012/exclusive---norman-j--ornstein---thomas-e--mann-extended-interview-pt--1

So how did Post-Reagan conservatism not only end up on the wrong track, but in ruin?  There are many reasons for the morphing of Goldwater/Reagan conservatism into one now dominated by theocratic statists:
 
(1) The end of the Cold War cycled out "fusionist" conservatives, many of whom were also retiring due to old age. This removed a major counter balance to big government conservatives regarding funding and fervor.

(2) The faith-based conservatives moved from getting government out of schools and bedrooms to embracing government in both as long as it was there for "their" agenda not the liberal agenda.

(3) Reagan picking Bush 41 over Jack Kemp in 1980 ending the conservative continuum and "big tent" conservatism where leaders looked for ways the philosophical core [dating to the 1600s] could attract new adherents by showing them how it helped them.

(4) The end of the conservative continuum left the movement rudderless. It opened the door for "Republicans" and "conservatives" [I use quotations because these people are neither] to decline into micro-targeting/pandering of fringe interest groups within the electorate, the same way the Democrats/Liberals had formed their winning coalitions since the 1960s. Karl Rove was the master of this new "art". He developed the current method of cobbling together fringe groups to form a winning coalition with no philosophical core, except for how bigger government can help them.

(5) The Internet, Cable TV, and Talk Radio ushered in the era of hyper-partisanship where middle ground solutions are ignored or shouted down by both extremes. It also opened the door for the new generation of pundits to assail anything not of their party, even if it made sense; and to embrace anything of their own party, even if it was crazy.

(6) Viewing reality through this hyper-partisan prism led to the “Rip van Winkle” effect. For the eight years of George W. Bush, most “conservative” officials and pundits cheered Bush’s leap into theocratic statism and his ill-conceived and poorly executed foreign adventures. The Tea Party eruption in 2009 arose, in part, because all of a sudden these same “conservative” officials and pundits, who had cheered Bush, were denouncing Obama for following these same policies. Average citizens who followed Fox News and “conservative” talk radio “woke-up” and realized their government was now 9+ years down the wrong rabbit hole.

What is sad is that “conservatives” and “Republicans” still assert that 2012 is about reversing the last four years, when it should be about reversing the last twelve. If you include the Republican Congress losing its ways after the 104th Congress’ “Revolution” than 2012 is really about reversing the last sixteen years!

A Hundred Years in Iraq

On Thursday, January 3, Senator John McCain admitted that he would not be surprised if America remained in Iraq “for a hundred years”. He defended his statement on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, January 6. In both cases, McCain cited South Korea and Europe where U.S. forces are posted decades after hostilities ended.

It would be more instructive had Senator McCain reached further back to a more applicable precedent – the Philippines.

In 1898, President William McKinley used questionable intelligence about the sinking of the Battleship Maine to go to war with Spain. Linking Spain and its colonies to what later proved an accidental coal dust explosion in a ship moored in Havana, Cuba is very much like the arguments linking Iraq to 9-11 and Al-Qaeda.

Just like with the Iraq War, President McKinley’s military advisors secretly prepared for war long before formal Congressional approval. A declaration of war against Spain was passed on April 19, 1898, and Admiral George Dewey attacked Manila Bay on April 30. Just like Iraq, superior U.S. technology and planning quickly bested the foe and conventional warfare soon ended.

Just like in Iraq, the U.S. assumed that they would be welcomed as liberators as they were ending centuries of brutal Spanish colonial rule. The U.S. even transported Philippine independence leader Emilio Aguinaldo from his exile in China to help rally local forces against the Spanish. However, relations soon turned sour as Aguinaldo and his independence forces wanted immediate self-rule, not an interim U.S. occupation.

Instead of “mission accomplished” the U.S. found itself fighting insurgents for four years. The capture of Aguinaldo on March 9, 1901 did not end the struggle as other leaders emerged. In fact, even though the U.S. declared a formal end to the “Philippine-American War” on July 2, 1902, various insurgent groups sporadically arose to fight Americans until 1913. There were nearly 7,000 American military casualties. Over 20,000 insurgents were killed along with 200,000-1.5 millian Philippine civilians. U.S. forces caused the deaths of more Filipinos in fifteen years of fighting than the Spanish had during their 300 years of colonial rule.

The U.S. remained a major presence in the Philippines governing it first like a territory and then as a commonwealth until driven out by the Japanese in 1942. Once U.S. forces defeated Imperial Japan policy shifted to promoting independence. The first free elections in a fully independent Philippines were held in April 1946, forty-eight years after the U.S. invaded the country.

The U.S. continued to maintain major military bases in the Philippines, including the Subic Bay naval base. The eruption of the Mount Pinatubo on April 2, 1991 buried much of the naval base and led to the U.S. ceding its last military outpost to the Philippines’ government in December 1992, ninety-four years after the U.S. invaded the country.

It is somewhat ironic that McKinley is President George W. Bush’s and Karl Rove’s favorite President. It is unfortunate that they decided to re-enact his Philippine venture in Iraq. Also, there are no volcanos in Iraq to help us close-out our presence in the year 2103. At least not geological ones…