I've been watching a pattern emerge, first among my friends who are conservatives, and now flooding into the mainstream, as exemplified by this video today: http://www.breitbart.tv/...
In the video, someone at a McCain rally takes the mike and goes on a rant, to the joy of the crowd. "I'm mad," he says. "I'm really mad. And it may surprise you that it's not the economy I'm mad about, but about these socialists taking over the country." And he goes off on Ried, Pelosi and Obama, as if Obama had been president the last eight years, and the congress controlled by Democrats for 10 of the last 12.
The pattern started with conservatives distancing themselves from Bush after the bloodbath of 2006. I watched as they first started to simply say, Bush has been bad for the Republican party, and then increasingly pushing him over a cliff along with their own responsibility for supporting his policies rabidly since they first voted for him in 1999.
Now, this is the party that talks so much about personal responsibility. About honor and integrity, and standing up for what's right. Now that the policies they supported, from the war, to rampant deregulation, have been totally discredited, they are pathologically incapable of admitting it--to the surreal degree that if you listen to them now, you would think George Bush was a Democrat they'd railed against for the past 8 years.
You see this in the blame for the economic crisis on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or on the Credit Reinvestment Act that supposedly started the whole sub prime mortgage mess, at least in the mind of conservatives. Where, exactly, in that bill was there a requirement for banks to stop checking credit history, or requiring a downpayment, or making loans of 120% of the value of the home? But reality doesn't matter. Conservatives are now running in full flight from the monster they've created, wrapping it all around the neck of George Bush and reframing him as a socialist democrat so they can demonize Obama and genuflect in front McCain.
This is truly insanity. If you speak with a conservative who holds these views, the disconnect from reality is simply stunning. This, my friends, is the party that has spouted about personal responsibility for generations. They had the ultimate power to bring their vision to life, and the results are a horror to behold. And now, they are incapable of actually learning a lesson. They are shifting the blame entirely on their perceived enemy, and using it as fuel for hatred.