REAL ART VIDEO WEEK!
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL: CONSERVATIVES COME TO CALL

From the Bill Moyers Journal website:

What's happened to the conservative movement in America? Conservatives Mickey Edwards and Ross Douthat discuss why they believe their movement has gone off track during the last eight years and what it means for the Republican Party.

Watch part one, or read its transcript here. Part two here.

Okay, this is a fascinating discussion, well worth watching, if only because I find myself in agreement with much that these two conservatives have to say. I mean, don't get me wrong, they are conservatives, after all, so there's no way I'm on their side or anything like that, but their interior critiques of contemporary American conservatism, along with how my far-left self can find some common ground with them, brings into question the entire notion of ideology itself.

What is conservatism, anyway? Or, for that matter, what's liberalism?

A young conservative friend of mine, in response to my assertion that Obama is a conservative, pro-corporate Democrat, sent me a link to this National Journal article branding the Presidental nominee as the "most liberal Senator in 2007." Within hours of reading that one, this Media Matters article debunking the National Journal piece landed in my lap. However, the latter article quoted a study ranking Obama as the tenth most liberal Senator for '07. Either way, everybody but the far left appears to think the Senator from Illinois is liberal.

How could this be?

Here's how: both articles implicitly assert that "liberal" is defined as what most Democrats vote for, and "conservative" is defined as what most Republicans vote for. Call me old school, but I always kind of thought that political ideology existed conceptually outside the sphere of partisan politics. That is, "conservative" and "Republican," while related, are not at all the same thing, ditto for "liberal" and "Democrat." In other words, ideology is about ideas, while political parties are about policy, which may or may not conform to the traditional ideology with which a party is usually affiliated.

It appears that, increasingly, public discourse ignores this distinction, which is unfortunate because such a tendency does nothing but make an already confusing situation more confused.

Anyway, go watch the interview. It's cool.

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