More Cracks in the Norquist Dam

It appeared that Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss was the first to turn apostate about the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge that he himself, Saxby Chambliss, had previously signed. Then yesterday Republican Senator Lindsay Graham publicly waffled on a Sunday morning Bloviators' Show. (So did Republican Rep. Peter King, on Meet the Press, and John McCain, on Fox News Sunday.)

Actually, none of those guys were the first to crack. Republican Senator Tom Coburn, way back in July, wrote an op-ed published in the NYTimes that complained about Norquist’s “tortured definition of tax purity” while concluding that the Norquist pledge is now irrelevant.

More amazing ... the sudden defection of Arizona's newest Republican Senator Jeff Flake, than which there is no more conservative individual in Congress (Flake voted with Virginia Foxx to deny federal relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). During a candidate debate this year, Flake actually denied having ever signed the Norquist pledge, though he most certainly did. “The only pledge I’d sign [now] is a pledge to sign no more pledges,” Flake said, which was his way of saying, "Don't count on me, Grover."

We knew Norquist's grip on Republican gonads was really doomed when we heard Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday say on November 11th:

"It won't kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires. It really won't, I don't think. I don't really understand why Republicans don't take Obama's offer. Really? The Republican Party is going to fall on its sword to defend a bunch of millionaires, half of whom voted Democratic and half of whom live in Hollywood and are hostile?"

Under these circumstances, what's a Tea Partier to do? More to the point, what will Grover Norquist order them to do?

The Dam Breaks

The Bully

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) sez he won't honor his pledge to Grover Norquist to never ever ever vote for a tax increase.

Uh-oh.

Someone just stood up to the bully, and generally when that happens ... well, it could start a more general uprising.

“I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,” Chambliss said. “If we do it [Norquist's] way then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.”

Next up in Georgia: "Primary his ass!"

Conservatism: Waiting For a Tow

Some of the most interesting reading these days is found on conservative blog sites, and we're particularly alert to more calls for "purges" of weak-kneed sisters in the ranks who dared vote for one or another of those Bush initiatives that are now seen as conservative heresy.

Erick Erickson at RedState, for example, who wants to separate the conservative "movement" from the Republican Party (since look where being joined at the hip got them all!) and who uses the "p" word ("purge ... purge") twice, along with the metaphor of "dead wood" for describing Republican/conservative leaders whose leadership is no longer required (and by "dead wood," Erickson is apparently not referring to the impenetrable space between Sarah Palin's ears but to certain unnamed "conservative" orgs and unnamed Republican members of Congress who need to be disappeared as soon as possible).

As a spectator sport, the philosophical advancement toward hari-kiri on the Right has been even more fascinating than we could have hoped for, and no one's even been bled out yet. We're avidly waiting to see whether "the movement" can squeeze itself down into the number of people who'll fit comfortably inside a walnut shell.

NOTE TO PURGERS: Sen. Saxby Chambliss voted FOR the Bush/Paulson bailout, than which there can hardly be a greater conservative heresy. Yet there was Sarah Palin, the Doofus Darling, campaigning for Chambliss all over Georgia yesterday, proclaiming him conservatism's savior and -- naturally-- a "maverick" in the Senate.