Republican debate reaction

Yesterday, I read this post by Glenn Greenwald:

The great fraud being perpetrated in our political discourse is the concerted attempt by movement conservatives, now that the Bush presidency lay irreversibly in ruins, to repudiate George Bush by claiming that he is not, and never has been, a "real conservative." This con game is being perpetrated by the very same conservatives who -- when his presidency looked to be an epic success -- glorified George W. Bush, ensured both of his election victories, depicted him as the heroic Second Coming of Ronald Reagan, and celebrated him as the embodiment of True Conservatism.

This fraud is as transparent as it is dishonest, yet there are signs that the media is nonetheless beginning to adopt this theme that there is some sort of epic and long-standing "Bush-conservative schism." But very little effort is required to see what a fraud that storyline is.

One of the few propositions on which Bush supporters and critics agree is that George Bush does not change and has not changed at all over the last six years. He is exactly the same.

Or as Digby puts it more succinctly (quoted in the same article):

George W. Bush will not achieve a place in the Republican pantheon. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)

So I looked forward with great anticipation to seeing if this dynamic would surface in the Republican debate this evening-- and, lo and behold, it did. You see, the Republicans in Washington didn't fail because of flaws in their conservative ideology, they failed because they turned into liberals! And in a contest between "professional spenders" (the Dems) and the "amateur spenders" (the Republicans), the Democrats will always win, said Tommy Thompson. Apparently the answer for the Republicans is to take a turn to the right. Um, good luck, fellas.... let me know how that works out for you.