A Liberal Dose of Denial ...

A rather impressive Harold Meyerson column today ...

Conservatives in Denial

Republicans may have lost, conservatives argue, but only because they misplaced their ideology. "[T]hey were punished not for pursuing but for forgetting conservatism," George F. Will, conservatism's most trenchant champion, wrote on this page last week.

Their mortal sin, in this gospel, was their abandonment of fiscal prudence.

They doffed their green eyeshades and gushed red ink. "The greatest scandal in Washington, D.C., is runaway federal spending," said Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the true-blue conservative who is challenging Ohio's John Boehner for the post of House Republican leader.

Holding conservatism blameless for last week's Republican debacle may stiffen conservative spines, but the very idea is the product of mushy conservative brains unwilling to acknowledge the obvious: that conservatism has never been more ascendant than during George Bush's presidency; that the Republican Party over the past six years moved well to the right of the American people on social, economic and foreign policy; and that on Nov. 7 the American people chose a more pragmatic course.

Meyerson goes on to rebut the usual "conservative" shibolleth that today's Republicans aren't really "conservative" after all. Nevermind that the problems this administration and this Congress have created result entirely from either the enactment, execution of, or overt desire to implement a variety of conservative wishes.

It might be a wonderful sentiment to believe that Republicans lost because they weren't "conservative enough," but it strikes me as oddly reminiscent of Democrats delighting themselves with a loss under the balm of polls showing Americans still favoring a stereotypical platform of Democratic issues. Good luck figuring out the results while hanging out in the wilderness.