Zoo Station

With George W. Bush's inauguration, the impression is the "right" has put the finishing touches on a conservative foothold in Washington D.C. But what hasn't been covered well is the dissent inside the conservative ranks. One fascinating critique comes from Paul Craig Roberts, formerly US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Reagan (1981-82) , Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

This is relevant to the award-winning Zoo Station because his latest editorial was published on OutlookIndia.

Dr. Roberts has all the right pedigrees for being a loyal member of the right, but he says he went "overnight from being an object of conservative adulation to one of derision."

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

But perhaps the most alarming charge, and one likely to make it un-publishable in mainstream American outlets, is his comparison of right wing fanatics with a more notorious group of fanatics.

Today it is liberals, not conservatives, who endeavor to defend civil liberties from the state. Conservatives have been won around to the old liberal view that as long as government power is in their hands, there is no reason to fear it or to limit it. Thus, the Patriot Act, which permits government to suspend a person's civil liberty by calling him a terrorist with or without proof. Thus, preemptive war, which permits the President to invade other countries based on unverified assertions.

There is nothing conservative about these positions. To label them conservative is to make the same error as labeling the 1930s German Brownshirts conservative.

I was surprised and impressed with this comparison, and immediately wondered about Dr. Roberts, and his standing on the right. First stop was conservative haunt TownHall.com (a project of the Heritage Foundation), which carried his columns since 2000. Interestingly, the last one they carried was in June 2004. According to his October 16, 2004 column:

In language reeking with hatred, the Heritage Foundation's TownHall.com readers impolitely informed me that opposing the invasion of Iraq is identical to opposing America, that Bush is the greatest American leader in history and everyone who disagrees with him should be shot before they cause America to lose another war. TownHall's readers were sufficiently frightening to convince the Heritage Foundation to stop posting my columns.

Who's publishing his columns now? Counterpunch and Antiwar.com, two left-leaning alternative pubs.

The acquiesence to the current administration is astonishing. It's not that they don't like advice from enemies. They don't even like it from friends.