Updated: Republicans’ Incoherent Mea Culpa

An incoherent P.J. O’Rourke dithers on about why Republicans have betrayed conservatism. On the most important national questions-cum-calamities—perpetual immigration and war—he seems to think more of each was the way to go. That is if I understand the man’s bafflegab (perhaps I don’t).

If anything, led by deracinated neoconservatives, Republicans’ move to the left on immigration has been their downfall. And if O’Rourke’s own support for an ill-begotten war doesn’t yet excite disgust deep down, what hope is there for the rest? As I said, “GOP; RIP.” Here’s O’Rourke, if you can stomach him:

“Our attitude toward immigration has been repulsive. Are we not pro-life? Are not immigrants alive? Unfortunately, no, a lot of them aren’t after attempting to cross our borders. Conservative immigration policies are as stupid as conservative attitudes are gross. Fence the border and give a huge boost to the Mexican ladder industry. Put the National Guard on the Rio Grande and know that U.S. troops are standing between you and yard care. George W. Bush, at his most beneficent, said if illegal immigrants wanted citizenship they would have to do three things: Pay taxes, learn English, and work in a meaningful job. Bush doesn’t meet two out of three of those qualifications. And where would you rather eat? At a Vietnamese restaurant? Or in the Ayn Rand Café? Hey, waiter, are the burgers any good? Atlas shrugged. (We would, however, be able to have a smoke at the latter establishment.)
To go from slime to the sublime, there are the lofty issues about which we never bothered to form enough principles to go out and break them. What is the coherent modern conservative foreign policy?
We may think of this as a post 9/11 problem, but it’s been with us all along. What was Reagan thinking, landing Marines in Lebanon to prop up the government of a country that didn’t have one? In 1984, I visited the site where the Marines were murdered. It was a beachfront bivouac overlooked on three sides by hills full of hostile Shiite militia. You’d urge your daughter to date Rosie O’Donnell before you’d put troops ashore in such a place.
Since the early 1980s I’ve been present at the conception (to use the polite term) of many of our foreign policy initiatives. Iran-contra was about as smart as using the U.S. Postal Service to get weapons to anti-Communists. And I notice Danny Ortega is back in power anyway. I had a look into the eyes of the future rulers of Afghanistan at a sura in Peshawar as the Soviets were withdrawing from Kabul. I would rather have had a beer with Leonid Brezhnev.
Fall of the Berlin wall? Being there was fun. Nations that flaked off of the Soviet Union in southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus? Being there was not so fun.
The aftermath of the Gulf war still makes me sick. Fine to save the fat, greedy Kuwaitis and the arrogant, grasping house of Saud, but to hell with the Shiites and Kurds of Iraq until they get some oil.
Then, half a generation later, when we returned with our armies, we expected to be greeted as liberators. And, damn it, we were. I was in Baghdad in April 2003. People were glad to see us, until they noticed that we’d forgotten to bring along any personnel or provisions to feed or doctor the survivors of shock and awe or to get their electricity and water running again. After that they got huffy and began stuffing dynamite down their pants before consulting with the occupying forces.
Is there a moral dimension to foreign policy in our political philosophy? Or do we just exist to help the world’s rich people make and keep their money? (And a fine job we’ve been doing of that lately.)”

Update (Nov. 11): John Zmirak of Taki’s Magazine concurs about the “senile” P.J.:

P.J. O’Rourke is now officially senile. Pour a stiff glass of bourbon before wading into this farrago of parrot-sh*t. The problem with conservatism, for P.J. as for Frumbag, is conservatives. They should learn to put up with forced desegregation and worthless public schools, gay marriage, abortion, colonization by hostile, nationalistic foreigners, and the use of the U.S. military to fight other country’s wars. In return they might, just might get… drumroll please: fiscal responsibility. Yeah, we’ve never spent a dime on all that federal equality micromanagement and foreign conquest, or all those uninsured unskilled laborers. That’s funded by pennies from heaven.

The same pious homilies are echoed by most of conservatism’s custodians—just enough “insight” to make themselves appear as though they’ve retained something of their faculties and have embarked on a quixotic quest to confront their excesses and errors; but not quite enough to show Republicans up for the rudderless sorts they are (for the most).

As always, Republicans are great at dimming and dumbing down debate.