One (but certainly not the only) conservative conundrum of our age.

One thing that really bugs me about people, no matter the topic or the person, is when someone pushes contradictory positions and can’t even admit that they aren’t even making sense. It’s obviously the listener’s fault! How dare you misrepresent my position! You are not only wrong, you are evil! Etc., etc.

Here’s the deal. I am rather enjoying the current meltdown by certain persons within the “conservative” movement about the Republican party over John McCain becoming their nominee in the upcoming presidential election. Many people hate the idea. They appear to hate McCain as a person. He holds positions they don’t like, and he doesn’t go out of his way to kiss the religious right’s collective behind. Even though his voting record shows that he votes in the conservative block a very large amount of the time, he still isn’t “one of them”. Rush Limbaugh regularly blasts McCain on his radio show. Ann Coulter said that she would rather vote for Hillary than McCain! Hugh Hewitt has a weekly public meltdown. Tom Delay (ex-House Leader and bug exterminator) just went on the Sunday news programs and lambasted McCain. His crimes? McCain isn’t “a true conservative”!

However, these same people continue to argue that liberals and Democrats are on the far left of the country, that we are “out of touch” and hold unrealistic positions. THEY represent the mainstream, WE are fringe lunatics. It doesn’t matter what the polls say (depending on the poll, anywhere from 50% to 70% of Americans now say the war in Iraq was a mistake and want us out within a year). That is the mantra they keep repeating over and over. They are the mainstream, we are not.

How can these two things be true? How can their own party (apparently) nominate someone that is so radioactive to the “true conservative”? If they are the mainstream, aren’t they saying that their own party is so out of touch that they are going to nominate some closet liberal to run for President as a Republican? This argument makes absolutely no sense.

On the other hand, what makes more sense is that these “true conservatives” are so far to the right that most of the people within their own party don’t even agree with them anymore. It is these “true conservatives” that are actually out in the fringes. And they can’t admit it. I get a certain sense of satisfaction to see the depth of the hysterics they are throwing. On the other hand, it certainly is a pretty sad statement about the state of political discourse in this country.

(I realize there are a lot of unsubstantiated statements made in this post. I will try to find some links to show what I am referring to in some of these statements.)