They'll spend all your tax dollars to build a better Iraq--but give a working American half a break? No way. The Republicans voted to kill the minimum wage today. Endless dollars for Iraqis, not a cent for working Americans. They run which country?

Richard Viguerie is shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that the Republican party is being run by and for big business. If Mr. Viguerie was just some run-of-the-mill conservative bumpkin, I could possibly sympathize with his sudden awakening. But though I fundamentally disagree with him, Viguerie is an enormously shrewd and skillful political operator. That he is now espousing horror that the Bush administration has somehow betrayed the conservative movement needs to be seen as a cynical attempt to rescue conservatism.

As Bush's popularity continues to sink, conservatives are left with trying to distance themselves from the train-wreck of this administration. The failure of Bush's conservative policies must somehow be prevented from indicting conservatism in general. Hence the attack on Bush. But as I noted before, Viguerie is shrewd. The business interests in the Republican party are infinitely cynical toward the social conservative base, and if they need to appear to temporarily retreat in the face of anger, they will, knowing that it is really they and not the bumpkins that run things. Keeping the bumpkins pacified and voting will get them everything they want. So Viguerie goes on a campaign denouncing the incompetence of Bush and the graft of the Republican congress, and with his confederates, rallies the troops and wrings confessions and appologies from the wayward politicians just in time for the socials to support them again for congress.