Voice of a NeoCon:

Christopher Buckley writes in today's New York Times that "defiance — defiance of the gleeful kind — is a quality I’ve always associated with conservatism," as he attempts to explain why he is not not supporting Senator McCain in the presidential election. In other words, Buckley doesn't come out and state that he's supporting McCain, he simply argues that perhaps the propagandists that the right employees to spew venom at the conservatives' foot soldiers are making a mistake. After all, they have no viable substitute.

So, according to Buckley, a conservative is the kid on the playground who thrusts out his jaw and threatens to take his ball and go home if he's not allowed to be quarterback. Sounds about right.

Let's take a look at what the current conservative quarterback has to say about the continuing economic catastrophe he's helped to create: "Recession means that people's incomes, at the employer level, are going down, basically, relative to costs, people are getting laid off." — George W. Bush, Washington D. C., February 19, 2004.

There's nothing Wall Street likes to see more than companies downsizing.

David Brooks opines in today's New York Times that, while Senator Obama generates the idealism of "change," no real change is likely to occur should he be elected president. Brooks, who considers himself the consummate realist, in the mode of the safely white upper middle-class male, who has no concerns over his family's financial security or health care, wonders when the hangover will begin to occur.

He's right, of course. The ocean liner is too big to turn easily, and it's far too close to the iceberg. The question is how many will drown. The rich and powerful are already in their lifeboats.