Un-American

I thought the new conservative line about the need for a tyrant was mere intellectual gamesmanship.

But then I read this, coming at the end of a long, rambling column that included calls for Republican outrage, snarky attacks on environmentalists' "self-congratulation," the rightness of CEO pay, and Babe Ruth's record for pitching the longest no-hitter. "Random thoughts on the current scene," he call it. We call it the rambling whine of that guy two stools down the bar who won't shut the fuck up. But I digress. This NRO columnist is calling for measures more stern than simply electing Rudy! for president.

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.

While the Right condemns progressives for "hating America," its "leading lights," like Thomas Sowell, propose destroying our democratic institutions. Worsening degeneracy? Funny, feel like I've heard that one before.

To sum up, on the pages of The Wall Street Journal is an argument that the president is above the law and should act as a tyrant. On NRO, a regular columnist pines for a military coup.

And then there's this.

Tom Cole earned a PhD in British history from the University of Oklahoma, intending to become a college professor, but he came to his senses and to a zest for politics, and now, in just his third term in the House of Representatives, he is chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

When did it become, for the Right, appropriate to praise someone who chose politics over education?

It's interesting; the Right's "love" of America doesn't include what it is that makes it America.