[Mb-civic] Among the believers (who needs logic when you've got power?)

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/19/cpac/
Among the believers 
At the Conservative Political Action Conference, where rabid Bush-
worshippers learn that liberals hate America and that we really did 
find WMD in Iraq.
By Michelle Goldberg for SALON.COM
Feb. 19, 2005| WASHINGTON -- It's a good thing I went to the 
Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Otherwise I never 
would have known that, despite the findings of the authoritative David Kay 
report and every reputable media outlet on earth, the United States actually 
discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, vindicating all of George 
W. Bush's pre-war predictions. The revelation came not from some crank 
at Free Republic or hustler from Talon News, but from a congressman 
surrounded by men from the highest echelons of American government. 
No wonder the attendees all seemed to believe him. 
The crowd at CPAC's Thursday night banquet, held at D.C.'s Ronald 
Reagan Building, was full of right-wing stars. Among those seated at the 
long presidential table at the head of the room were Henry Hyde, chairman 
of the House International Relations Committee, Kansas Sen. Sam 
Brownback, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Dore Gold, foreign policy 
advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and NRA 
president Kayne Robinson. Vice President Dick Cheney, a regular CPAC 
speaker, gave the keynote address. California Rep. Chris Cox had the 
honor of introducing him, and he took the opportunity to mock the 
Democrats whose hatred of America led them to get Iraq so horribly 
wrong. 
"America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this 
time among the blame-America-first crowd," he crowed. Then he said, 
"We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to 
make them inside Iraq." Apparently, most of the hundreds of people in 
attendance already knew about these remarkable, hitherto-unreported 
discoveries, because no one gasped at this startling revelation. 
And why would they? Like comrades celebrating the success of Mao's 
Great Leap Forward, attendees at CPAC, the oldest and largest right-wing 
conference in the country, invest their leaders with the power to defy mere 
reality through force of insistent rhetoric. The triumphant recent election is 
all the proof they need that everything George W. Bush says is true. Sure, 
there's skepticism of the president's wonder-working power among some of 
the old movement hands -- including the leaders of the American 
Conservative Union, which puts CPAC on. For much of the rank and file, 
though, the thousands of blue-blazered students and local activists who 
come to CPAC each year to celebrate the völkisch virtues of nationalism, 
capitalism and heterosexuality, Bush is truth. They don rhinestone W 
brooches and buy mouse pads, posters and T-shirts showing the president 
as a kind of beefcake Uncle Sam, with flowing white hair and bulging 
muscles threatening to rend his red, white and blue garments. 
It's not only liberals who have noticed that Bush's most committed 
followers are caught up in the fact-filtering force field of a personality cult. 
In January, Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary of the treasury during 
the Reagan administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal's 
far-right editorial page, published a damning column in the progressive Z 
Magazine about fascist tendencies in the conservative movement. "In the 
ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. 
It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from 
self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush," he wrote. 
"Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large 
number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush 
 
Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of 
their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy." 
This kind of ground-level devotion was key to the volunteer-driven get-
out-the-vote campaign, and the administration sent important emissaries to 
convey the president's gratitude. Although the Republicans always have 
high-powered representatives at CPAC, this year the lineup at the three-day 
conference is particularly impressive. On the first day alone, attendees 
heard from Karl Rove and Sen. Rick Santorum as well as Cheney. Tonight, 
there will be a speech by Zell Miller, the former Democratic senator who 
delivered the vein-popping keynote address at this year's Republican 
National Convention. He'll be delivering a "Courage Under Fire" award to 
the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Tomorrow, we'll hear from Republican 
National Committee chair Ken Mehlman and Newt Gingrich. 
Neither Cheney nor Rove said anything very interesting. As he does most 
years, the vice president essentially rehashed Bush's State of the Union, 
although he mercifully omitted any reference to the Federal Marriage 
Amendment. Rove's speech was about the growth of the right from "a 
small principled opposition" to "a broad and inclusive movement that is 
self-assured, confident and optimistic, and forward leading, and most 
important of all, dominant in American politics today." 
Their mere presence was more significant than their words, putting the 
White House imprimatur on an event that featured, in addition to the Swift 
Boat Veterans, venomous CPAC regulars like Ann Coulter, Oliver North 
and Michelle "In Defense of Internment" Malkin. It was yet more evidence 
that this administration puts little distance between itself and the most 
reactionary forces in the Republican Party. 
The people who come to CPAC range from very conservative to proto-
fascist. Within that grouping, though, are a host of different concerns. 
Some of CPACers hate taxes and love guns but are basically social 
libertarians. Others, like the American Society for the Defense of 
Tradition, Family and Property, a far-right Catholic outfit, support the 
criminalization of homosexuality and oppose legalized birth control. A few 
have very specific grievances, like the man who stood after Santorum's talk 
to rant about judges who discriminate against fathers during custody 
disputes and women who won't let their ex-husbands see their children 
more than twice a month. 
In his speech, Santorum tried to unite the various constituencies behind the 
anti-gay marriage amendment with the Orwellian argument that such an 
amendment is actually necessary to keep government out of people's 
private lives. 
"I know there are some people who may be economic conservatives and 
not consider themselves cultural conservatives," he said. Addressing 
himself to them, he tried to explain how banning gay marriage is crucial to 
laissez-faire governing. "Think about those communities where marriage 
does not exist," he said, invoking their poverty and illegitimacy. "What you 
see is a model of what life would look like in a country that has fathers and 
mothers not wedded together in strong relationships to raise children." In 
poor neighborhoods, he said, there's a strong government presence, 
"because if Mom and Dad isn't there to raise the child, someone else has to 
bridge the gap, and that someone else is always the government." 
Santorum didn't quite explain how proscribing gay unions would 
strengthen families in poor communities. The assumption seemed to be that 
homosexuality would make a travesty of matrimony. Like a suburban block 
where undesirables insist on moving in, its worth would go down. "If we 
deconstruct marriage in society, if we say marriage is whatever you want it 
to be, then marriage loses its intrinsic value," he said. 
"I'm talking at a very protective level about what is important to our 
society if we are to be a free people," he said. "The less virtue we have in 
our society, the more the need for government to control our lives, to 
govern our lives." In other words, government needs to enforce virtue in 
order to keep government out of our lives. 
This argument seemed to make sense to his audience. 
Who needs logic when you've got power? 
About the writer
Michelle Goldberg is a senior writer for Salon based in New York. 



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