If you, like me, have been wondering how this incredibly grotesque, outrageously pig-ignorant President was forced upon us, and why it's so difficult to stop him, I've given some thought to the matter.

Remember when he was running in '99? He was so uninformed and bumptious it was laughable. Especially since we had been used to having an intelligent President with an active brain for the eight years before. Lined up against the other candidates, he looked like a pimply-faced frat boy at a VFW lodge.

But, with hindsight being 20/20, it now seems inevitable. The stars were in alignment, and a peculiar set of circumstances were in place to insure an unstoppable Republican juggernaut.

Conservatism is anti-American.

That’s right. I said it.

But don’t take my word for it; ask conservatives themselves.

They’ll tell you straight out.

That towering colossus of intellectual rigor, Jonah Goldberg, puts it out there, and openly says what most conservatives believe in their hearts but dare not say in the public sphere (emphasis mine):

David Frum has an interesting column on the limits of populism and the upside of elitism. These are two of my favorite themes. And since Huckabee seems to be a champion of the former and a foe of the latter, I thought (in the spirit of bloggy self-promotion) I’d call attention to one of my broadsides against populism and one of my defenses of elitism.

   Regardless, I agree with David that populism is a useful and healthy passion when aimed at the liberal elite. But conservatives can get drunk on it when they proclaim that elites are bad simply because they are elites. Conservatives respect authority — the authority of ideas, traditions, morals, religion, customs, reason, law, excellence and so on. One cannot believe in this kind of authority while having a blanket hostility to elitism in any form.