Monday, February 27, 2006

Conservative Speaks Out, Gets Fired... by Conservatives

Apropos my previous discussion with Gary Farber about Francis Fukuyama, and what attacks on the administration from the right liberals should embrace, comes details about Bruce Bartlett, author of Imposter: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy, which by all accounts is a devastating conservative critique of the present administration. Bartlett is a Liberty Fund/NCPA think-tanker, a career conservative with historical and economic training, and after he published his book, he was sacked. I can't get a bead, based on what I've read so far, if this is another Fukuyama-esque incident -- good evidence of the internal contradictions of Bush-ism, but not terribly attractive argumentation -- or if Bartlett is the kind of conservative (more classical liberal than really Reaganesque) who might contribute arguments we could use without choking on them.

Carnival Non sequitor: there's two more carnivals for highly specialized audiences, both ripe examples of the increasing specialization of the carnival movement and highly questionable contributions to world civilization: The 24 fanfest Carnival of Bauer and the anti-evolutionary Darwin is Dead roundup (Orac and Matt are on the case already; no word yet on anti-24 curmudgeons, but I'd be happy to hear from folks, just for balance). [On the other hand, the Kosher Cooking Carnival could be a sign of the approaching messianic age....]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To be fair, the Carnival of Bauer!!! has a category for Anti-Bauer posts.

Ahistoricality said...

Does it? I don't see any evidence of it in the announcement, but the first carnival isn't up yet.

And I think including funky punctuation in your carnival title is plain tacky.