The Compromise That Always Was

Conservatives were already such weird people and now that they've gone past their "wilderness" phase and have decided to Go Galt, they've gotten a whole lot weirder. Rather than try to find some rational strategy to oppose the tidal wave crushing them, they've turned inwards and are plumbing the depths of their inner-paranoid, unaware of what a bad trip it's taking them on.

Here's Redstate's Mark Impomeni who takes one phrase from a NY Times article on Obama's stem cell policy and uses it to connect a conspiracy between the "liberal" media, the Democratic Party, the Obama Administration, and the abortion "industry." And it's all based upon a NY Times article which referred to Bush's stem cell policy as "a careful compromise." That's it. The use of this one phrase helped Impomeni connect the dot to uncover our hyper-secret conspiracy to do exactly what we kept saying Bush should do. And there are no better conspiracies than the ones that everyone knows about.

You see, while "rational" people "knew" that Bush's stem cell policy was scientific and ethical; Democrats decided to use it to score political points by pretending that Bush's policy was bad. But now that Democrats are in charge, the media is providing political cover to Obama by suggesting that Bush's policy was good. That way, when Obama does what Democrats have always attacked Bush for not doing, then...uh, well...I'm not sure exactly where Impomeni was going with this part. But I'm sure it involves something dastardly and deceitful.

He goes on to write about how he knows that Obama isn't interested in science or ethics because he choose to do what Democrats always said Bush should do, instead of modifying Bush's approach, which they opposed. And he's doing this to give "political payback" to the "Abortion Industry" because they supported him because he's "the most radically pro-abortion president in history."

Yes, for you see, if people act exactly as you'd expect them to act, what else could it be than a secret plot? And sure, Occam's Razor would suggest that Impomeni is completely nutshit bonkers, but what's the fun in that? Besides, the NY Times called Bush's policy a "careful compromise." Surely that must mean something, right?

Seems Like Old Times

Wrong. As it turns out, the NY Times has been using the phrase "compromise" to describe Bush's policy since before he officially announced it. And Impomeni would have known this if he had bothered checking a little thing called Google.

Here's a story from July 2001 entitled Bush Aides Seek Compromise On Embryonic Cell Research. And yes, that's a month before the policy was officially announced. And here's one from September 2001 which refers to it as "a careful compromise" as well as a "delicate stem cell compromise." And lest we believe this was language quickly dropped once Dems developed their evil strategy, we have an article in March 2004 which referred to it as a "a political compromise." And here's an article from July 2006 which again refers to it as a "careful compromise."

And how long did it take me to find these? About 10 seconds. And note, those selections included two uses of the exact phrase "careful compromise" which Impomeni insists is a shift in rhetoric. And in case you're wondering about the odds of this specific phrase being used, check it out: Three of those four articles were written by the same reporter who wrote the current article that Mark's complaining about. She's been using the same "careful compromise" for over seven years!

What a joke! Impomeni's entire premise is undermined by a quick search in Google. But that's what hard times they've hit on. They used to at least pretend to have policy differences with us. Now they're relegated to hunting for key phrases which can be used to uncover preposterous conspiracies that wouldn't even make sense if they were true. He could have written a post about why Obama's policy was wrong. But instead we got yet another Liberal Bogeyman piece insisting that we're all one giant enemy set to destroy them.

At a guess, I'd say last November's "upset" election has got them so freaked that paranoia is the only thing they trust anymore. It's obvious that hubris didn't do them any favors, but it'd be nice if they tried picking up a third thought process.