Well now, it has been an interesting couple of days. It seems John Dean has a new book out called Conservatives without Conscience and it ought to prove interesting reading. Keith Olbermann interviewed him the other day about it in a thoughtful and fascinating interview. (video courtesy of Crooks and Liars).

The basic premise of the book is that the current crop of self-described conservatives have long since abandoned Goldwater conservativism, to which they may still pay lip service, for a worship of authoritarianism and he backs this up with research that shows conservatives today have a natural tendency to give themselves over to an authoritarian mindset, preferring to be led blindly by power rather than by an understanding of, and concern for, the issues of the day. Sounds about right to me.

Then there is this gem, written a few years back by a Maine sixth-grader about the flag.

The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.

School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.

Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag’s real meaning remains.

And then of course there’s this gem from Think Progress:

LEAHY: The president has said very specifically, and he’s said it to our European allies, he’s waiting for the Supreme Court decision to tell him whether or not he was supposed to close Guantanamo or not. After, he said it upheld his position on Guantanamo, and in fact it said neither. Where did he get that impression? The President’s not a lawyer, you are, the Justice Department advised him. Did you give him such a cockamamie idea or what?

BRADBURY: Well, I try not to give anybody cockamamie ideas.

LEAHY: Well, where’d he get the idea?

BRADBURY: The Hamdan decision, senator, does implicitly recognize we’re in a war, that the President’s war powers were triggered by the attacks on the country, and that law of war paradigm applies. That’s what the whole case —

LEAHY: I don’t think the President was talking about the nuances of the law of war paradigm, he was saying this was going to tell him that he could keep Guantanamo open or not, after it said he could.

BRADBURY: Well, it’s not —

LEAHY: Was the President right or was he wrong?

BRABURY: It’s under the law of war –

LEAHY: Was the President right or was he wrong?

BRADBURY: The President is always right.

Which for those of us around during the Nixon administration rings especially loudly because it echoes so closely Nixons’ statement to David Frost “Well, when the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.,” which we all fondly remember as the beginning of the end for Tricky Dick.