Well the phrase 'hot on the "president's" tail' is not very appealing to read first thing in the morning and the part about poor sportsmanship in collegiate athletics seem off base to me.

But, sure, generally true.

Conservatives, though, don't really mind doing harm to others, even murder, especially if they add the phrase, "for your own good."

I don't know if I agree with that. It's overly harsh, for one thing. But mainly, I think the conservatives tend to be mostly concerned with their own good, not yours or anyone else's. They're primarily motivated by self-preservation and maintaining the staus-quo. Her assertion that they are motivated by "protecting the tribe" doesn't take into account the willingness of many (NOT ALL) conservatives to sacrifice the greater good for personal benefits.

that's what i wondered, jrossi--cutting heating aid or college aid to the poor, etc, doesn't benefit anyone selfishly, but they still do it all the time.

cutting heating aid or college aid to the poor, etc, doesn't benefit anyone selfishly

That's not true, it allows taxes to be lowered, which is exactly what it was used for in this most recent round of cuts. It's a completely self-serving move for fiscal conservatives. Conservatism in general is at odds with itself between cultural and fiscal conservatism, and the latter branch doesn't always understand that the interests of the former branch militate against many things which they might want to enact.

but they've cut taxes regardless, and only started cutting benefits recently when people started complaining about their out-of-control deficit spending (people in their own tribe, to use Smiley's language). They've cut taxes on the rich every single year i think. And the Govt. has only gotten bigger too, with new massive federal departments and programs under the GOP. They are tax-and-spend.

Yeah, amberglow, and some old-line conservatives -- who remember the budget-balancing days -- are starting to become very uneasy with the Bush approach.

I, too, thought the analogies in this piece sucked, and she shouldn't have brought in that "god-damned piece of paper" quote from the dicey Capitol Hill Blue (I swear they recycled it from the Clinton years). It's also bogus to say that "we always agreed on the rule of law" -- look at history, it's always been differing views of the law. And in 2000, I think many right-wingers truly believed, deep in their hearts, that they had not only judicially prevented election fraud by Democrats, that they'd won fair and square. It's a delusion, of course, and projection on their part, but I always thought it was telling that Democrats worried about people NOT ABLE to vote and Republicans worried about people VOTING TOO MUCH. What, are they afraid of the electorate? I think so.

The GOP is returning to a 19th-century (or pre-WWII, anyway) view of the world. Heck, Nixon was practically a liberal by these standards. Self-sufficiency is a virtue, and a social safety net is a cop-out. Failure is a Darwinian imperative to improve the species (maybe that's why they don't want people to study evolution, hmm).

There were some good points here, but I'd send it back to the student for a rewrite if it were a term paper.

from what i remember when i was little, there wasn't this "party above country" thing with Nixon...i don't know tho--did the rest of the GOP stick by him and excuse every bad thing he did like with Bush?

a response at Huff Post