The closing of the conservative mind

Late to the debate, but an excellent post on the current conservative echo chamber

Daniel Larison at American Conservative Mag drills down a little more:

In movement-world, Iraq had little or nothing to do with what happened in the 2006 midterms–it was spending and earmarks! In movement-world, the financial crisis was caused pretty much entirely by the Community Reinvestment Act and the GSEs. You might have never known that the Federal Reserve, FASB 157, and Bush’s “ownership society” housing policy even existed if you relied on mainstream conservative media, because these things might implicate the “wrong side” in contributing to the disaster. Critical thinking, self-criticism and a willingness to revisit and abandon assumptions were all notably absent. As movement conservatives see things today, Obama either rejects American exceptionalism or simply loathes America (and in some circles the debate is simply over where he learned this loathing), and he is doing all he can to weaken America and hasten American decline. Their new political stars and leading pundits spout nonsense on foreign policy, and they make blustery proclamations of the uniqueness and superiority of American social mobility and economic dynamism that are flatly untrue. There is an impulse to self-congratulation and hubris in all of this that tends to hamper clear and critical thinking.