Peter Brimelow captures the collapse in all its vivid, vacuous details. Here are some select excerpts:

“Now, perhaps symptomatic of the general collapse of the Conservative Movement, CPAC is vastly larger but there is no central narrative, and above all, no dissent. …”

“Even back in the 1970s, you sometimes got the feeling that CPAC was run for the benefit of an in-group, despoiling but secretly despising us hayseeds from the boondocks. This is now flagrant. Of course, ‘Inside the Beltway’ has become an intoxicating, and notoriously insular, city-state. Still I’ve never seen a conference in which the speakers and celebrities were so systematically protected, with screened walkways and greenrooms, from contamination by the hoi polloi, general and Diamond alike. …”

“But, basically, I haven’t seen such a cattle call/mass rape of grass roots contributors since I went to my first and last Inaugural Ball in 1980. …”

“In fact, Ann Coulter’s rapid-fire liberal-bashing knockabout routine (much harder than it looks) was easily the most interesting performance. Ann has many jealous detractors among her supposed allies on the Establishment Right, but I have a lot of respect for her intellect and would guess that she could have developed the best political argument too. Significantly, however, she chose not to do so. …” [My emphasis: Peter is polite about Coulter’s lack of intellectual leadership on crucial issues. She’s capable of so much more.]

“Before the conference, Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer searingly denounced ‘the Norquistian Islam-Is-A-Religion-of-Peace orthodoxy that prevails at CPAC,’ telling Newsweek that ‘conservatives…were fearful of being accused of being anti-Islamic or racist for associating with [Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian currently being prosecuted for his opposition to Islamization]”.

“And in fact CPAC did not, as Spencer obviously anticipated, find room in its program for Wilders. Instead, he spoke to a packed ancillary meeting organized by supporters.”

“The immigration issue … was almost invisible. At VDARE.COM we have chronicled its inexorable emergence at CPAC, in 2003 (when Michelle Malkin got a standing ovation), 2005 (when Tamar Jacoby was booed) and 2007 (when, with help from some Presidential candidates, immigration reform patriots dominated the sessions). At every stage, it has been apparent that the CPAC audience was solidly in favor of immigration control.”

“No doubt for that reason, this year the CPAC managers took the incredible decision not to discuss immigration at all. …”

Read “‘Regardless Of Their Doom/The Little Victims Play’: CPAC, Frum, Limbaugh…And America?”