Conservative Pundits Bailing by the Busload

[CatWoman]

Whenever I want to get a quick snapshot of conservative talking points, I take a quick - and I mean quick - run around the block at NRO's The Corner.

And people, it doesn't look pretty for Bush today. On this single August Sunday morning, we already can mark up one outright defection and one very, very doubting - and questioning - former Kool-Aid drinker.

First, the defection. Andy McCarthy declared today:

For what it's worth, this is where I get off the bus.

...even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm's way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace.

And Jonathan Adler quotes a bailing Professor Bainbridge, who starkly states: "It's time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent." Adler goes squishy and mumbles: "While I am not sure I agree with his analysis, he raises questions that conservatives should address."

Hoo boy. I think the walls are tumbling down.

Please, take your cursors out for a spin around the internet and add your "Pundits Who Are Bailing." I think for the elitist conservatives, the incorporation of Islamic law into the Iraqi constitution is going to be the breaking point.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/21/124310/445

[blue neen]

1. Will Bush, Cheney, Rummy, and Condi finally admit they made a mistake?

Nah.

[MrModerate]

3. Maybe when they're standing in front of . . .

the World Court in the Hague?

One can dream, anyway.

[Degtyarev]

10. Bring 'em on :D

I know a lot of people here in the Netherlands who would like them to be here in the Hague.

[newyawker99]

19. Hi Degtyarev!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[yorkiemommie1]

4. mistake, what's that ???

not them. ordained from above, you know. Bush's mama called him 'the chosen one '.

[MrModerate]

12. Yeah . . . chosen:

By Scalia and Thomas . . .

[Raster]

6. Hell no. Never. The question is will the other conspirators--and by

conspirators, I mean the U.S. Congress--admit they allowed criminals who were lying through their teeth the full run of the place. Come on, maybe middle America really did believe bush*. I know, hard to believe. What's even harder to believe is that members of Congress did not have doubts about the neocon game plan. Congress gets the best info and intelligence in the world, second only to the President. Very competent people assured Congress saddam did not have any WMD. Congress knew this. They went along with the whole charade because "all that oil AND a middle east democracy?... Golly gee willikers, yes, let's have a simple little war. And you're sure the Iraqis are all for this? Greeting us with flowers and songs...? And we get to control all that lovely oil? Well, O.K., I guess it's for a good cause." BULLSHIT, I say. Congress was either brain dead or accomplices. Either way they need to answer for abdicating their constitutional responsibility and allowing the inmates to run the asylum.

[Burried News]

13. I thoroughly agree

"Congress gets the best info and intelligence in the world"

They reside in DC. They hang out in bars, golf at the club, yabber at the socials, have friends and relatives at the various agencies ...
They damn well knew what the deal was and in my book they had the excuses and obfuscations well planned for the day it collapsed.

The only thing they didn't anticipate is how the mid level functionaries, the core of the government etc would speak out.

They didn't understand that, UNLIKE THEMSELVES, the people at the heart of government loved their country, would fight for it and tell the truth.

[Pharlo]

15. Non Sequitur

Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush...

A Mount Rushmore of Incompetence.

(Personally, I think your punchline needs a little work - but then, that's just my opinion.)

[Burried News]

2. Richard Cohen at the Washington Post bailed about a year ago

and had the integrity to say he was wrong. The absence of WMD's did it for him.
George Willfull will support the war till he dies - he is one jerk that isn't man enough to admit he was wrong.
Charles Krautyammer can't admit he was wrong because the Treason word may yet manage to stick to him.
And Hoagland still thinks he walks among the Gods. For him the war is just a curiousity - he's a long view guy - you know, a thousand years from now...
Why do I keep thinking Heckle Jeckle and Hide.

[MrModerate]

5. Thousand years as in . . .

the "Thousand-Year Reich?"

[Bluebear]

7. "Bush has pissed away the conservative moment...

by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent."

Holy cannoli!

[CatWoman]

17. THAT IS HUGH!!!!!!111

:hi:

[Bluebear]

18. THIS GUY IS TREESON!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Rats fleeing a sinking ship

Well, almost.

A few of them are rats.

A few of them are conservatives who still have a few threads of conscience left.

And it's not just the War of American Beneficence that they're fleeing. The whole Neo-Con agenda is coming a-cropper. A lot of them are not comfortable with the 24/7 sexual obsessions of the Religious Right, the Religious Right feels slighted that Bush isn't talking about the destruction of Islam in the name of Christ, and the Libertarians quake in fear on the merest contemplation of the Mighty Deficit.

Most of them won't admit just how wrong they were, but this is a good start. By 2010, people will not be able to admit to having been conservative without blushing in shame.

Not that we lefties should take too much time to gloat. There is a lot of damage that needs to be repaired.

--p!

[eleny]

9. If they know it now - they knew it when we did

But they bet on the big enchilada. That the hoax could be pulled off and they could all laugh all the way to their respective first class nursing homes with wads of dough in the bank. Lives characterized by flush cash spent on easy street.

Mea culpas wouldn't even get my attention now. The nerve of those bastards one and all - including Hagel. He may very well have stolen his first election via the voting machines.

Nuts to the lot of 'em. I want my country back and they have to pay for it. After all, they all profited off our wallets and the lives of soldiers.

[kliljedahl]

11. Real conservatives bailing on the NeoCons

See Pat Buchanan

[jbane]

14. Pat Buchanan is out....

It was either MSNBC or CNN, he was on laying out the truth as he see's it and he was not apologizing for "W".

[Old_Fart]

16. Do you mean Andrew McCarthy from the Breakfast Club?

:shrug:

[zippy890]

20. from the link above

National Review online;

-snip-

LOSING THE WAR ON TERROR: THE VOICE OF DESPAIR ECHOES AGAIN
For what it’s worth, this is where I get off the bus. The principal mission of the so-called “war on terror” – which is actually a war on militant Islam – is to destroy the capacity of the international network of jihadists to project power in a way that threatens American national security. That is the mission that the American people continue to support.

...........
-snip-

only a matter of time before others start bailing...