Garrison Keillor: "We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore"

Garrison Keillor - Lutheran, liberal, Minnesotan - lets loose with both barrels in a remarkably angry piece:

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous.

Wow. Now I have some dear Republican friends, but I have to say that my Republican friends, whom I respect, tend to be the sort that Keillor also extolls, the "50s Republicans," a party of "good -hearted people" who "decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships."

The New Conservative movement - neocons, for those of you who know the lingo - is what Keillor's blasting away at, and I understand his anger. The neocons in control of our government are the farthest thing from upstanding 50s-style Republicanism this country has yet seen in power. They are not for fiscal responsibility. They are not for small government. They are not for a cautious foreign policy. Neocons like Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rummy, and their ilk give a very bad name to true conservatives - folks like my Republican friends.