Greenwald on the Difference Between "Progressives" and ConservativesLike everybody, he sees the
dissent on his own side and not the dissent on the other. Everybody rallied 'round Bush while progressives hold Obama's feet to the fire. In other words, progressives are good and noble and true to their beliefs while conservatives are mindless robots.
Even as Bush implemented one massive expansion of government power after the next -- the very "un-conservative" policies they long claimed to oppose -- there was nothing but (at best) the most token and muted objections from them. The handful of conservatives who did object were cast aside as traitors to the cause, and criticisms of the President became equated with an overt lack of patriotism. Uncritical support for the Leader was the overarching, defining attribute of conservatism, so much so that even Bill Kristol, in The New York Times, acknowledged: "Bush was the movement and the cause."
Hilariously, under the words "overt lack of patriotism", Greenwald links
to a speech by that well-known conservative, Joe Lieberman. As far as I can see, this is the offending passage:
It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.
But of course Lieberman is no conservative. The
American Conservative Union graded him an 8 in 2008, which made him less conservative than Hillary Clinton (11) or Barack Obama (17) that year. So where does Greenwald get off calling him a conservative? Oh, he supported Bush on the war, ergo he's conservative.
