The reason "Conservatism" has fallen into such disrepute is that it has always been a phony philosophy. Disguised as an advocacy of "freedom," what "Conservatism" really is is a syndrome of ego-aggrandizement, greed, lust for power, genuine racism and xenophobia, privilege, and deflection of responsibility to the lower classes.

That's the current "right". A more legitimately "conservative" approach to regime change in Iraq might have been a welcome improvement over the current fiasco, but I agree with your assessment of whatever it is that uses the name and runs as the current GOP. Phil Agre wrote an essay in 2004:

What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html

I was going to write another of my weak, brainless post about how you pansy, cut and run, welfare loving liberals have ruined this country. But then I realized that over the last 27 years 19 of them have been under a Republican president and we've seen the disparity between rich and poor increase, uninsured Americans increase, the wealthy gain more wealth, corporate america control the legislative process, illegal wars, illegal funding of terrorits groups (see Contras) so I decided to stick my head back in the sand and pretend the GOP is doing right by America. Heil Bush!

This is funny. How many in this group have had anything, anything at all, positive to say about Bush, conservatives, or Republicans? None, I would venture.

Short lifespan of the Reich. It's a good thing.

Iokannan in the Well:

When has George W Bush, his party or his base done anything even remotely worthy of praise?

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/06/11/070611taco_talk_packer

George W. Bush did four good things last week. He strengthened sanctions on Sudanese companies and officials in response to the ongoing massacres in Darfur. He called on Congress to double the funding for global AIDS programs, to thirty billion dollars. He directed his envoy in Baghdad, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, to sit down with his Iranian counterpart and discuss ways of stabilizing Iraq—the most high-profile meeting between top officials of the two countries in years. And he attacked the demagoguery of right-wing critics of the bipartisan immigration bill.

Each case has its caveats, flaws, and what-took-so-longs. But it should be noted that the three hundred and thirty-second week of the Bush Presidency was one of the best. Nobody will remember it.

Bush’s legacy will be the war in Iraq and, secondarily, the array of decisions on prisoners, alliances, treaties, and preventive war which revolutionized American foreign policy after September 11th. Last year, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked whether Iraq would come to define the Bush Administration, she said, “I think it’ll be bigger than Iraq, I think it will be the Middle East.” This was wishful thinking on the part of the official most engaged in walking the Administration back from its own wreckage: a desire to define the President’s record away from what it has actually wrought in our time and toward a hypothetical future. In fifty years, this thinking goes, a new generation will realize that the war kick-started political change, and forced the Middle East out of its deadly pattern of autocracy and extremism.

This exercise in justification by faith posits a visionary President with the courage to ignore temporary bad news. By this light, Bush’s habit of declaring A to be B—for example, claiming that the surge reflects the public’s desire for a change in war policy, or interpreting increased violence in Iraq as a token of the enemy’s frustration with American success—becomes a sign of clarity and resolve, not delusional thinking. When everything is turning to ashes, take the long view. Last December, Senator Richard Durbin, of Illinois, described a meeting at the White House in which Bush discussed Harry S. Truman and the foreign policy of the early Cold War—initially unpopular, ultimately vindicated by history. According to Durbin, Bush implied that he will be similarly remembered.

Who knows what the world will look like in fifty years? It’s hard to imagine, but perhaps the Middle East is at the start of a decades-long road toward democracy and stability. If so, though, history isn’t likely to find the prime cause of that happy outcome in the Bush Presidency. Truman established the institutions and policies that guided America to victory in the Cold War. The loss of China, the stalemate in Korea, and the corruption and the domestic upheavals of the late forties and early fifties now seem secondary to the international architecture—the NATO alliance, the doctrine of containment, the legitimacy of democracies as a counter-force to Communism—that Truman left in place. Bush will have no such legacy. His Administration—or part of it—is trying to reverse or restrain his farthest-reaching policies without admitting that anything went wrong with them. We are not present at the creation of anything. A democratic Middle East would bear the same relation to the Iraq war as the United Nations does to the Second World War: the salvaging of a tragedy, not the fulfillment of a vision.

- - George Packer

You wrote "Republican Party," but I think you meant to write "Republican Partei," right?

In truth, the pack-like mentality and brutal ignorance of The Base was fully on display both during the 2004 campaign and the subsequent Social Security bamboozlepalooza, where only declared Bush supporters were deemed worthy to approach The Presence, and all other citizens were excluded (and thrown out and/or roughed up if they managed to make their way in).

And the 28% will not going to be able to undrink the KoolAid. So we'll be dealing with these people for quite some time, no matter which Leader they end up fixing on this time around.

I have nice things to say about some folks who call themselves conservatives, and I have plenty of nice things to say about the brand of conservatism that cares for the Constitution and the freedom this country has been working towards since the beginning.

Spot on.

Even as we have differences on some issues; we all have to come together to fight for freedom and liberty. Great post.