Politics
Neocon Control

Neocon Control

Neoconservatives gained control of the Republican Party by subverting conservatives and the conservative message, but their political pillar has many cracks. ...
John F. McManus

Many Americans, including a growing number of political figures, claim to be conservatives. Not only do some attach this label to themselves, media operatives fasten it on a veritable parade of others, some of whom they wish to harm with the label and some of whom they seek to boost, however unworthily. But the wide-ranging views, some even contradictory, issued by these individuals should result in a good deal of head scratching. Why? Simply because, currently, there isn’t any commonly accepted definition of what it means to be a “conservative.”

This identity dilemma was starkly illustrated during the recent 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the annual extravaganza sponsored by the American Conservative Union that features speakers, panelists, and exhibitors representing what is widely considered to be the veritable Who’s Who of the conservative movement. For the second year in a row, CPAC found itself convulsed with controversy over including GOProud, a self-described “gay conservative” group, as a cosponsor of the three-day event. “Gay conservative”? This would have been considered an oxymoron by almost everyone just a few years ago, when the efforts of homosexual activists to force acceptance of their lifestyle were universally recognized by self-identified conservatives as a revolutionary attack on the basic moral, social, and political foundations of our society. After heated internal wrangling, the forces of “diversity” triumphed. The CPAC organizers ruled that GOProud would stay — even though the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, the American Principles Project, American Values, the Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, and other groups that have been past CPAC participants dropped out in response to this cave-in on a matter of fundamental concern.

Still another indication of this identity crisis can be seen in this year’s CPAC presentation of the “Defender of the Constitution Award” to former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, arguably one of the most notorious recent offenders of the Constitution. Rumsfeld’s attempts to set up his own unconstitutional military tribunals, his suspension of habeas corpus, and, in general, his running roughshod over the Constitution’s Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, make CPAC’s choice to present him with such an award seem downright Orwellian.

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