Shrivelling Into Dementia

I've lost track of Bruce Bartlett of late and was glad to hear him back into the mix commenting on the firing of David Frum from the American Enterprise Institute. Bartlett was a senior policy adviser for both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. A voice of fiscal conservatism and, no doubt, one of the keenest conservative minds of the last quarter century, Bartlett was kicked out of the Cult when he wrote the book Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy.

Bartlet's latest entry on the Cap gains blog echoes what I have been saying on here for a long time. Commenting on the Frum firing:

Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.

It saddened me to hear this. I have always hoped that my experience was unique. But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already.

It has already, Bruce. A recent trip to the gym saw a woman scream at me that President Obama has broken his oath to the Constitution and should be impeached. She went on to tell me that I should read Glenn Beck and that he, not Obama, should be president. She was terrified that the government, now that they have "taken over" health care, were going to "get us." She then went on to explain that she was mad at Obama for taking away federal funds for a charity with which she works. WTF?!!?

I knew things would be bad but I didn't think they would be bad AND complete devoid of sense!