Daniel Larison on the Thing that Used to be Conservatism

What used to be the Party of Ideas continues its morph into the Party Where Thinking is Strongly Discouraged by the likes of police state enthusiast Andy McCarthy. Any party that takes Mark Levin seriously as a Major Intellectual Player is in deep, deep trouble. And party that immediately turns on and shouts down somebody like Jim Manzi for pointing that out is going to remain in deep, deep trouble for quite some time to come, even if (indeed, especially if) the gods of politics, in their spite, hear the prayers of the Thing That Used to be Conservatism and give them another shot at screwing things up even worse than they did in the last decade.

My fear is that, given the folly of the Dems, the GOP is rushing from remembering nothing to learning nothing and gaining a false sense of vindication which will not help them learn from their many titanic follies of the past decade. Putting such fools back in power will only hasten and complexify the many screwups they committed. The prospect of a Romney/Palin ticket, while it seems to thrill some, just fills me with dread.