"Democrats can't prosecute unless they've taken leave of their senses..."

Chris Hayes of the NATION suggested that Ross Douthat is an intelligent, principled conservative.  After I read Daily Kos's blurb in "Abbreviated Pundit Roundup" I went and raed Douthat's full NYT column.  It was a back-handed defense of Dick Cheney.  Douthat imagined a scenario in which Cheney rather than Mccain was the Republican nominee.  Douthat proposed that Cheney's landslide defeat would have been good for the Republicans the way Goldwater's was in 1964...And he would have put the torture debate on the table in a useful way, the way he sorta of has now.  Douthat evidently thinks, from the quote cited in the subject line, that there is no question that torture is necessary and that nobody should be prosecuted.   Up until then Douthat was pretty incisive and interesting.  I think that's a clear exemplar of the chief defect in right wing thinkery--there's always a point at which conservative thinkers arrive, even if they are making a
serious effort, where they assume that some assertion or proposition of theirs is so obviously true that it needs no further explanation or defense. 

For all the talk about Republicans' need to re-think, there is nothing there to re-think.  Outside of the stance of their quasi-fascist remnant, there is only one place for them to go:  become a right wing social democratic party--which might be a useful countervailing power against excessive impulsiveness on the Left.  In any case, if the Republicans become truly marginalized (as they seem to be trying their damnest to do), I see the Democrats splitting into two parties--left wing and right wing social democrats. 

R.
 
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