Daniel McCarthy makes a very good point over at @TAC:
Phil Klein of the American Spectator reports on the recent not-so-secret conclave of conservative-movement mavens at Brent Bozell III’s chateau:
TAS Publisher Al Regnery and editor in chief R. Emmett Tyrrell were on hand, along with leaders from policy groups and grassroots organizations representing each pillar of the conservative coalition, from Christian conservatives to libertarians, and everybody in between.
Any antiwar conservatives? Critics of the Federal Reserve and the loose money policies that led to the mortgage meltdown? You know, the issues that cost the GOP control of Congress two years ago and sent McCain down to defeat earlier this week?
Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, pollster Kellyanne Conway, and direct mail guru Richard Viguerie were among those present.
As expected: no Ron Pauls or Pat Buchanans need apply.
A very excellent point indeed. As long as we Anti-War, old-school or Paleo-Conservatives are shut out of the Republican Party, that party will be what it is now and that is totally irrelevant. (As John Amato called the Neo-Conservative talkers.) The problem is that Amato does not realize that not all Conservatives, this writer included, embrace the “Bush Doctrine”. Yes, I believe that America should defend itself. But only if it is attacked. Bush’s doctrine believes that one should attack, if they think someone is going to attack them. it’s a preemptive stance; something that I am, and will always be against.
Further more, Bush did something that no other President has ever done. He used the September 11’th attacks, as a excuse to invade a country that had ZERO to do with the attacks at all. All based on a piece of faulty intelligence that was never fact checked at all. This was done all so Bush could further the Neo-Conservative agenda to bring western style of democracy to the middle east and possibly to upstage his father who stopped short of invading baghdad in the first gulf war.
Until the Republican Party admits that George W. Bush was wrong for pursuing this agenda, the Republican Party will be what it is now to the rest of America, what it is now; irrelevant.