In the first place, anything that William (Billy) Kristol writes is by definition going to be wrong. This critter has never had an idea, any idea that has worked. He’s a failed Reich-wing wonk who really should be put out to pasture (a long grassy stretch where he can kick up his heels and pretend he knows something, anything). The fact that he’s published in the NY Times makes me wonder how low our nation can go. You must remember that Billy is actually responsible for Sarah Palin way beyond his sphere of influence. How did that happen?

As for the rest of the article. I agree with most of it. I would love to put flowers on the Republican grave. Cheap plastic ones from some garage sale in the driveway of a foreclosed home!

You made some interesting points up until this gem:

"Sarah's most troublesome moments all preceded her successful debate."

Successful debate? For Palin? Are you talking about the Palin/Biden VP debate - the one that was on TV? If by successful, you mean that Palin didn't run screaming from the stage with shit streaming down her legs, then yes, Palin was a smashing success. Perhaps this really speaks to the core of how intellectually hollow Republicanism/conservatism has really become. The dumb cunt proudly and smugly announced that she simply might not feel like giving answers to the questions put to her. The woman has no answers. Can you imagine going to a job interview and telling the prospective employer, "Oh, you can ask me whatever you want, I just might not give you the answer you're looking for." I'm betting you don't get the job. Such is modern conservatism.

I would also argue that there has been no end to Palin's troublesome moments for the campaign. Witness the recent accusations among McCain's staff that Palin is "going rogue" with her own agenda, not to mention her stellar performances in super-softball interviews with really mean journalists like Katie Couric.

Of course, Palin probably thinks Jeebus is due to return any day now, so none of this is really that important anyway.

I'm not a student of terms like neo and paleo conservative, so I'll probably get a few things wrong. A few other posters mentioned the dreaded neo-cons. Here are my thoughts on them.

In the 80's, conservatism was simple. Less taxes, less government, less abortion, and anti-communism. It was widely considered to be behind the curve of history, not very hip, and weakly defended intellectually. Although, if you were reading the leading syndicated columnists of the time, those on the right tended to assemble facts and logic in support of reasoned arguments, while those on the left simply assumed the superiority of their positions, and assigned nasty names to their opponents.

By the 90's, there were some supposed *learned* upgrades to conservative thought. Charles Murry wrote a book purportedly showing *scientifically* why welfare didn't work. Farm subsidies came in for similar critique. We often read at the time that liberalism was getting dinged, not by Elmer Gantry *ideologues,* but by the facts. I guess some of these people went by the name neo-conservative.

Fast forward to Gulf War II, and all the maladies which followed. Neo-cons took a drubbing, even as they dominated publications such as National Review, the Weekly Stardard, and the Wall Street Journal. So thorough was their control and influence that when Mike Huckabee deigned to complain of *arrogance* in Bush's policy, those publications, along with Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, practically drove him out of the party and all the way back to Arkansas. Andrew Jackson treated the British better on their retreat from New Orleans. Ironcially, today the neo-cons stand completely discredited, and completely in control of the party. McCain is devoted to them completely. So is Sarah Palin, if you can accept her adherence to McCain's foreign policy; i.e., assuming that she doesn't have private misgivings - I hope she does. :)

This is yet another fissure the Republicans will need to somehow try to repair. And it may get worse, before it gets better, if our middle eastern struggles drag on further no matter who wins in November, and middle America wearies of it even more. As for the so-called paleo cons like Buchanan, it gets complicated because he has opposed almost every intervention of the last twenty years except, quixotically, troops to save the Catholic Croats from the Slavic Serbs in or around the time of the Yugoslav break-up in 1991. Most conservatives want some rational blend of muscle and realism, and hope they could find it from a Huckabee or a Palin, without having to recognize and defend every outpost in the world. But again, this will be an ongoing fight in a very fractured party.

Remember when the group of survivors led by Shelly Winters was slogging through the capsized ship, they came across a zombie-like group trudging inexorably in the wrong direction, to their inevitable doom?

That's the GOP.

glug-glug-glug-glug

The modern conservative movement is dying in front of our eyes, and its death throes aren't pretty.

You're wrong here. The death throes of this abomination against reason are very, very pretty.

They always come back. Thought they were defeated after McCarthyism was busted? They came back.

Goldwater was defeated by 22.6 points in 1964. Political watchers declared the GOP dead. Four years later, Richard Nixon was elected.

Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace. Political watchers wondered if the GOP could live it down. Six years later, Ronald Reagan was elected.

These men were all conservatives and they were all rightwing. Yes, I know Goldwater was somewhat libertarian, but he was rightwing, trying to overturn the safety nets of the New Deal and opposing the Voting Rights act.

The tent revivalists and snake handlers of the 1930s are successful megachurch leaders now. More Americans than ever are falling for that Old Time Religion. Huge numbers of Latino immigrants are leaving the Catholic Church and joining pentecostal churches. Mormons are opening churches in East Coast towns and cities that they never would have gone into 20 or 30 years ago.

The GOP will be back. The rightwing conservatives will be back. The overly-religious will be back. Never declare them sunk. They always bob back to the surface of American politics. They are well-funded by the multimillionaires in their own ranks and by billionaires who disagree with them but will use them as corporate bedmates.

Don't get smug. Be always wary.