Rhinocrisy

Just as I was starting to think that maybe there were good reasons to question the Dubai ports deal, David, in comments, shows us that Frank Gaffney is behind this firestorm. Yes, that Frank Gaffney. The only question now is who Gaffney is really representing in all this. Who are the other port management firms? Who could come out ahead if Dubai gets blocked?

Andrew Sullivan, everyone’s favorite gay Republican blogger, is quoted in Dana Milbank’s political gossip column in the Washington Post:

“This is a big-government agenda,” he said. “It is fueled by a new ideology, the ideology of Christian fundamentalism.” The bearded pundit offered his own indictment of Bush: “complete contempt” for democratic processes, torture of detainees, ignoring habeas corpus and a “vast expansion of the federal government. The notion, he said, that the “Thatcher-Reagan legacy that many of us grew up to love and support would end this way is an astonishing paradox and a great tragedy.”

Oh yes, we all remember the Thatcher-Reagan legacy so fondly, don’t we. No, Andrew, you moron. George W. Bush is following the same policies as Reagan. He is just better at it. Let’s think back on his small-government budgets, which created what were, at the time, unimaginable deficits. Or how about his small-government Attorney General, Edwin Meese III, who supported government censorship of not just pornography but also rock & roll records. Since some of us aren’t old enough to remember the joy of Congressional hearings about Prince, Madonna, and 2LiveCrew (who were there just to prove that the threat of censorship does not in itself guarantee indefinite shelf-life), there is still this brilliant Frank Zappa debate, preserved in silicon and iron filings for your viewing pleasure. (And in case that isn’t enough of John Lofton’s proto-Bushian Christian fundamentalist wingnuttery, you can also read him in conversation with Alan Ginsberg.)

What strikes me is the similarity between Sullivan’s critique of Bush and Zappa’s critique of Reagan, which at the time turned Robert Novak into a burbling plush toy of condescention. Now we hear Reaganites saying the same stuff about Bush. What next, in 20 years will Karl Rove be saying that kind of stuff about President Malkin?

(Apologies in advance to readers of the future for linkrot. Complain to the Post.)