From the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed to....Rove's Creed?

by rayman

While most of the blogosphere commentary on the CPAC shindig have focused on Congressman Chris Cox's idiotic (or illuminating, if he knows something we don't) comments on the "biological and chemical weapons and facilities" that we've discovered in Iraq. But there's another memorable quote from CPAC that I want to highlight. In his remarks before the conference, Karl Rove opined that

"Conservatism is the dominant political creed in America," Rove said. "Our movement has gone from a small, principled opposition to a broad and inclusive movement that is self-assured, confident, optimistic, forward thinking and ... dominant in American politics today."

Rove's unmistakable reference to "creed" is, er, an interesting choice of words, even if he attached the "political" qualifer in front of it. After all, he could have referred to conservatism as a political ideology, philosophy, viewpoint, younameit. Instead, he chose the word creed, which is defined as

1. A formal statement of religious belief; a confession of faith. 2. A system of belief, principles, or opinions:

Now, we could opt for the second, more innocuous connotation, but I have a sneakin' suspicion that Rove was referring to the first meaning. After all, it's certainly plausible to maintain that modern-day American conservatism has become a "formal statement of religious belief," no? Not only are the unbelievers constantly vilified, but even members of the flock who deviate even slightly from the right-wing creed meet the same fate. For example, Michelle Goldberg, in her CPAC dispatch (which, you'll notice, is entitled "Among the Believers"), quotes a recent article by Paul Craig Roberts, a former conservative in good standing:

In January, Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary of the treasury during the Reagan administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal's far-right editorial page, published a damning column in the progressive Z Magazine about fascist tendencies in the conservative movement. "In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush," he wrote. "Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush … Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."

And how! Suffice to say that this authoritarian mentality borne from the conservative creed is extremely unhealthy for what remains of our republic. Am I right, my fellow blasphemers?

UPDATE: The title of this post has been changed as per a commentator's astute observation that "voting Republican has become a sacrament and very nearly the paramount one." Heh.