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it is more than passing strange that ideology requires some conservatives to deny that there were problems--to say the least--with the fabrication of a case for invading iraq. there are some basic problems of credibility of the state itself which are at play here, problems which run beyond the particularities of the bush administration--problems that have in the end to do with the status of rules of ethics and law as transcending the persons and interests of those who hold power at any given time. given the role played by flag-waving and affirmations of Faith in "amurica" for conservative worldviews, you'd think that this sort of breach of at least good faith and at worst law (or actions which reveal the absence of law on the basis of which an administration could be brought down or to heel) would be Problems that the right would take seriously.
it seems to me that what this all points to is the strange conflation of the particular political interests of conservatives with the notion of america as a whole--there is no distinction---this seems to me rooted in the space occupied by identity politics in conservative ideology. i don't see anything comparable amongst those who support the democrats, and even less amongst folk who operate to the left of the democrats---it seems to me that amongst this population (which is not a single group) there's alot more willingness to engage in critiques of those who hold power in such situations----nothing at all parallel to the refusal to criticise happened amongst democrats during the clinton period for example.
populist conservatism in the states is a very strange beast.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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