Glory? About three pence ha'penny a pound in old money.

Question of the day: What price glory?

My answer: Honesty and facts.

David Brooks, a staunch Neo-con pundit whose column is cited in the blog The Anatomy of Conservative Self-Deception, is quickly redefining the terms of this defeat, and this is important because words, and the choice of words, shapes the story. Brooks is telling the story. The "Neo-cons" (and he is reputedly a true believer), are renamed "Traditionalists." I have been a watcher of the Republicans for over 30 years. I was fascinated by the parallel rise of the Neo-con ideologues and the Lee Atwater founded dirty tricks group (anything is fair in war and politics is war), but enough on that, now.

In renaming the "Neo-cons" as "Traditionalists," Brooks is shifting blame as he lays blame on individuals, all called "Traditionalists," so that the Neo-cons are spared. In his column, Brooks is identifying the individuals he wants as potential fall-guys for the GOP failure, while distancing them from him philosophical love, Neo-conservatism.

The GOP Traditionalists were dealt a fatal wound by Hoover. Nearly eighty years later they are not still around. Republicans flailed around for three decades until Goldwater, a very early neo-con, did not vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which turned Southern Democrats away from the Democratic Party, and into the waiting arms of the Republicans, who could point to Goldwater's politically cynical act. Not signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a purely political choice since it was going to win anyway: Goldwater (whose own letters and speeches show he believed in civil rights) was reputed to calculate that blacks and Hispanics did not vote, but the (then) huge poor white population of the deep south did, and he would own those votes (which they still do).

As the man who imagined boxed dwarfs, the beauty of Goldwater's strategy should be grist for the mill.

Where are you getting the idea that Goldwater was an early neo-con? Goldwater was just a plain old conservative--he was active far before the neoconservative movement ever took hold. There is a distinct difference between the two philosophies. Neoconservatives and conservatives are not the same thing.

Additionally, you're rewritten his (Goldwater) intentions as something completely contradictory to what he both said and believed. His reasons for not supporting the 1964 bill had to do more with his stance on government's role in interfering with business. He believed it was unconstitutional.

I would be greatly interested in knowing what source informed you that his reasoning had anything to do with driving poor white southern voters to the Republican Party. That's an interesting take, one I had not considered and have never heard put in that particular light. Perhaps I've missed something in my studies of the man.

"I’d go. Would you?"

No. If there's one thing people on the moon or Mars won't need, it's a lawyer.

You could be the law west of the Pecos!

Erm, above the Pecos!

Erm, nowhere near the Pecos!

NASA needs to figure out how to kill astronauts and talk about the three letter "s word" before they're allowed to talk about saving the human race...

Hell, we might be better off just funding the Russian space agency instead.

Wow. I wrote a dedicated entry about Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails back in April. It's an excellent book. A shame you didn't know about it until now. It's a quick read and the sort of thing I think you'd appreciate.

I am a bad lj friend...

Bad, bad you. There will be spanking.

Promises, promises.

I would not go.