CPAC, Limbaugh, and other horror stories from the crypt

One of the many pleasant aftereffects of ultraconservatism's crackup is the retirement of a civic need for appalled spectators to demonize its out-patient disciples -- or whacko-ize them, if you will -- because they're doing such a marvelous job of it all by themselves.

I mean, what additional diagnosis or prognosis is required when, for instance, the far right gathers with such convenient tidiness at events like CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and puts on pitiable display not only a wholesale absence of serious public policy, but a virtual 24/7 unraveling of whatever slim dignity it once strove to possess.

When even goddess-of-the-right Sarah Palin declines an appearance -- she suspects her old pals now have the cooties, I guess, plus she's too busy cramming for her 2012 finals, uncomprehendingly digesting copious past issues of Foreign Policy and Time for Kids -- then one knows the heavy black curtains are being lugubriously drawn.

"Man, this CPAC thing is crazy," observed Mr. Samuel Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, to fellow attendee Mike Huckabee -- and that's probably the sanest thing we'll ever hear Sam/Joe utter. With concise but tragically fleeting lucidity, he captured the moment, the spirit, the zeitgeisty degeneration of his semi-philosophical compadres.

Sam/Joe Wurzelbacher/Plumber was, as the Politico reported, "a headliner at a Thursday panel titled 'Conservatism 2.0.' " A headliner, mind you: an itinerant, breathtakingly clueless bullshitter was a CPAC-Chosen One to enlighten the multitudes on the fundamentals of conservatism. Breathtaking indeed.

Also on Thursday there were book signings by the still-unnetted Ann Coulter -- just the name chills for itself -- and the vastly disingenuous David Horowitz. (I once heard David say in an interview that college professors lead a carefree, easy life of leisure with phenomenal pay; oh, they give occasional lectures, but that's pretty much the burden of their existence. A few months later, in another interview that touched on why there are so few female professors in the sciences, I heard him say it's because women don't care to suffer the grueling schedules and demands of a college professorship. This is a man who makes his living by deriding the intellectual honesty of higher-education sorts.)

So that was Thursday but today, of course, is Saturday, which brings us -- or, rather, just them, thankfully -- to CPAC's bookended finale of ... Rush Limbaugh, scheduled to bellow and bray at 5:00pm EST, then -- get this -- receive at 5:30 the "Defender of the Constitution Award." (America's Constitution?)

Just now I ventured over to rushlimbaugh.com to take an intrepid peek at how this deep Conscience of Conservatism might be previewing his upcoming performance. Here's what I found, here's what is on Rush's Web site, here's what is weighing on the profound mind of Mr. Limbaugh in these profoundest of deeply troubled times:

You know, Clint Eastwood had it right, Clint Eastwood said he's fed up with political correctness. He's fed up with everybody trying to be politically correct. He's fed up with nobody being able to laugh anymore. He's fed up with not being able to tell race jokes and ethnic jokes. When he was growing up, everybody did. Nobody took offense at it. Every race tells jokes about the other race. Every country tells jokes about people in other countries. We can't do it anymore.

I gather, however, that Rush will this evening. But pause just a moment and consider what topic -- from all the topics available to choose from in these, as noted, horrifically troubled times -- Mr. Limbaugh chose with which to preview his speech: race jokes.

That kind of says it all, doesn't it? It pinpoints and broadcasts just how utterly adrift and altogether irrelevant movement conservatism has become.

But don't take my word for it, commie-pinko unAmerican rabble-rouser that I surely am in the seething, delirious, Rush-possessed eyes of the far right. You might, however, try on for size, say, John Derbyshire, a National Review contributing editor writing this (suspiciously) for The American Conservative:

Why have we allowed carny barkers to run away with the Right?...

Did the Limbaughs, Hannitys, Savages, and Ingrahams lead us to this sorry state of affairs? They surely did. At the very least, by yoking themselves to the clueless George W. Bush and his free-spending administration, they helped create the great debt bubble that has now burst so spectacularly....

In place of the permanent things, we get Happy Meal conservatism: cheap, childish, familiar. Gone are the internal tensions, the thought-provoking paradoxes, the ideological uneasiness that marked the early Right.

But however much this dumbing down has damaged the conservative brand, it appeals to millions of Americans....

If conservatism is to have a future ... it will need to listen to more than the looped tape of lowbrow talk radio.

As spotlighted this evening before the huddled, fawning and lowbrow masses of CPAC.

A Mr. Derbyshire I can respect, I can debate, I can even empathize with, in many a Burkean way. A Mr. Limbaugh I can only laugh at -- and marvel at the irrelevantly silly depths to which he and his fellow carny barkers have dragged modern conservatism. 'Tis a pity, because modern liberalism needs a worthy opponent if it's to maintain its own mental health.