One of my favorite quotes of the last, well, 12 hours is this from Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

"This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan,
who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York
Times. This was after Mississippi. "We can’t let the Democrats take our
issues." And those issues would be? "We can’t let them pretend to be
conservatives," he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be
conservative every day.

I had lunch with Fec on Wednesday and he said the exact same thing.  In fact he’s said the exact same thing every time we’ve had lunch, which explains his disenfranchisement -illusionment. 

I’ve known a few true conservatives in my time and while the most strident of them often scare me, I find that I get along really well with them because they’re predictable.  I know exactly where they stand and I know that they will consistently support their causes.  Ironically I know I scare the bejeezus out of them because I often change my mind (they call me wishy-washy) and I can be swayed by effective argument.  That’s a no-no to the strident on the left and the right.

For the record I usually fear the strident liberals more than the devout conservatives.  Mainly it’s because I believe that the conservatives know, and admit, that they’d shoot me for the cause if necessary, but the liberals have no idea that when push comes to shove they’d not only shoot me but burn me in effigy to make sure everyone gets the point.  They’d only realize it when they awake from their trance wearing a bloody shirt and reeking of gasoline, mumbling something about "loving everyone but sometimes sacrifice is necessary for the good of all man."