Truth Will Out

Maybe the biggest story developing in U.S. politics is how the Republican Party, such as it has grown to be constituted today, is re-kookifying. By which I mean that it is splintering and fragmenting again, and with each chip reveals the pieces to be fundamentally dysfunctional at best, but more often non compos mentis.

Leading the charge is "far-right wing operative and former communist agitator David Horowitz", who created something he called "Islamofascism Awareness Week" to bolster his dying speaking career. Horowitz is a leader in trying to muzzle liberal thought on campuses, in the guise of combating what he claims is a prejudice against right-wing thought.

Kooks like Horowitz seem to think that all schools should have the ideological balance reflected on Fox News. Problem is, thinking is the ideal in college study, and the modern Conservative orthodoxy has been shown as a total sham, a bankrupt ideology built on greed and fomentation of fear.

Max Blumenthal covers Horowitz at Columbia October 26th, where he even confronted him in Q&A with his own words, in which Horowitz compared his father to Mohammed Atta of that horrific 9/11 crew, all to make a circuitous ideological point.

All I can think is, does this entire Early-21st Century hole these Horowitz's and Bush/Cheneys have put us in have to be Oedipal wrecks?

Next comes the crack-up of the #1 Conservative book publishing house, Regnery Publishing, as a group of its authors sue for stolen earnings. The wingdingaling volumes include such classics as, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security and Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror.

You know, sci-fi.

It seems that Regnery owns the very book clubs it sells do at loss leader-style discounts. According to The New York Times:

Mr. Miniter said that meant that although he received about $4.25 a copy when his books sold in a bookstore or through an online retailer, he only earned about 10 cents a copy when his books sold through the Conservative Book Club or other Eagle-owned channels. “The difference between 10 cents and $4.25 is pretty large when you multiply it by 20,000 to 30,000 books,” Mr. Miniter said. “It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance.” He added: “Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?”

What's funny about this statement is that Regnery is actually acting like any other hyper-capitalist GOP mechanism, vertically integrating and taking advantage of a monopolistic opportunity in the marketplace that exploits elements of the creator's contract to maximize profits. Even if it screws the creator.

Jillions vs. pittance. Which side of that Hobbesian stick would anyone want to be on?

What's koo-koo is that for all the schaudenfreude, but per Kevin Drum:

But if a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, what do you call a conservative who's come face to face with the naked face of vertically integrated capitalism?

And my final favorite re-kookifying is actually a case of a kook making so much sense he makes his Party look positively kooky running away from him.

I used to fear Former Governor Mike Huckabee, who could still run away with the GOP Presidential nomination. Only now I think Huckabee would have to shuck even harder than he has to absorb Ron Paul's followers.

Rep. Paul (R-TX) is the bummer guest at the Republican Party's party, the guy who actually makes more sense on the Iraq War and its relationship to our U.S. Constitution than some of the Democratic candidates (Edwards and Dodd excepted). While you may not agree with Paul on this other Libertarian ideas (abolishing the IRS and Dept. of Education, cutting virtually all Federal regulations) they adhere to a consistent Constitutional approach, one that treats the Framers with a hell of a lot more respect and intellectual coherence than the Federalist Society cabal.

But looky here, Paul's campaign/supporters somehow organized up an excellent p.r. moment, when they all made their donations on Guy Fawkes day to the impressive tune of a $4.2MM one day haul. Nice work! The Guy Fawkes business has been criticized in relation to the British celebration -- capturing the man who was about to blow up Parliament -- but is really just an appropriate reference to graphic novel/movie V for Vendetta.

Kooky.

But already making the standard storyline Republicans kook-out in fear, trying to make you believe it's not really catching on.

The reality is that Rep. Paul's philosophy is very appealing and, I expect, will grow a following that may not even crest until 2012 or beyond. With the standard GOP philosophy discredited by all but the most hardcore ideologues or bloodsuckers, there's an opening for a concise, fiscally conservative, pro-habeas corpus, non-interventionalist philosophy. I wouldn't be surprised if Paul isn't a force at the Republican Convention -- maybe even winning a few states.

Will a Democratic candidate evince a consistent and succinct enough philosophy to lock in a win for this next Presidential election?

If I were one of them, I'd take a cue from Rep. Paul and start here.