Washington Post reports on outgoing Republican Senator Chuck Hagel's comments last night during an address at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. It seems he doesn't care much for the Bush Administration...

We have been remiss in honoring the good Senator with The BRAD BLOG's coveted and too-rarely bestowed "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award". So before he leaves the Senate entirely, we're happy to announce our awarding of this prize today to Hagel.

(NOTE: We're well aware of Hagel's troubling one-time ownership of voting machine company ES&S, before becoming the first Republican Senator to be elected in Nebraska in a dog's age... on ES&S voting machines. It is in spite that ignominy that we offer this most coveted award.)

BRAD BLOG readers know that we take no particular joy in even appearing to defend the corporate mainstream media. Nonetheless, the hateful rightwing loons that have taken over the majority of the discourse in this country have been so intolerably wrong on so many issues for so very long, it's nice to see one of them admit --- even tacitly --- that "conservatives" (as they call themselves) have been wrong in their idiotic attacks on MSM reporting. Particularly in regard to the War in Iraq.

So now, the Bush Administration, and the last of its dead-enders, have even lost National Review's Richard Lowry...

There's more, but you get the drift. A moment of intellectual honesty from Lowry. Though not nearly enough. Note his use of "they," not "we" or "I." And he can't help but take several idiotic, unsupported shots in the piece, lest he completely lose his readership base all together.

So it's not enough to earn himself a coveted, yet rarely bestowed, BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award." Either way, we hope for his sake that the waters are warm these days for the rats as they dive off the sinking ship.

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr was wrong on impeachment (of Clinton), but has been right on a number of things ever since, including joining Al Gore to condemn Bush's assault on privacy and civil rights vis a vis his unconstitutional domestic spying and other such programs.

Barr has now announced he has quit the Republican Party and is joining the Libertarians citing out of control GOP big government spending, and the aforementioned disregard for privacy and civil rights of U.S. citizens.

For that, he earns the too-rarely-bestowed BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award" today.

Wow...Given what I know about San Diego's KOGO radio host, Roger Hedgecock --- a frequent fill-in for Rush Limbaugh, by the way --- I would have predicted a firefight between us concerning my arguments questioning the validity of the Busby/Bilbray U.S. House special election in California's 50th congressional district on June 6th.

You know, the one were the highly-hackable Diebold voting machines were sent home with poll workers for days prior to the election in defiance of both state and federal rules and laws, rendering them illegal and uncertified for use in the election.

Well, slap my bottom and call me Spanky!...Guess what? I just got off the air with him, and Hedgecock and I were in complete agreement! He may even turn up at next week's "Emergency Townhall" meeting on this which is currently being organized (details soon).

The full afternoon drive-time appearance, about 15 minutes, is linked below if you'd like to listen. But to give you a flavor, here's how it ended...

Were it not for other fairly unforgivable transgressions in the past in other areas politically, I might have otherwise given Roger the too-rarely bestowed BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award." If he decides, however, to show up and bring along a few thousand folks with him for next week's "Emergency Townhall" event in San Diego (details soon) --- as I've invited him to do --- I might even consider a "provisional" awarding of the highly coveted prize!

Listen up...
-- Brad on the Roger Hedgecock Show on Busby/Bilbray & Electronic Voting [MP3]

(AFTERTHOUGHT: For those interested in on-air firefights between myself and "conservatives," see my shoot-out with St. Louis' wingnut-in-training, Crane Durham here, or the time I helped run Ann Coulter off the air halfway through our debate on Ron Insana's show here.)

Wow.

Doug McIntyre, the very conservative morning drive talk-show host out here in Los Angeles, last Friday issued a stunning "apology" for voting and supporting George W. Bush. It's a must read, hits on every point --- and I mean every point --- and should serve as a template for all intellectually honest conservatives. It also garners McIntyre the latest, and rarely bestowed, BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award!"

Here's just one graf:

Read the whole thing there are far too many money quotes to pull out and post here. Incredible.

(Thanks Bring 'Da Noise for the tip!)

THE GOOD NEWS... We have a new winner of the too-rarely-bestowed BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award"! According to Wednesday's NY Times:

Congratulations Rep. Wilson on being the latest recipient of our prestigious award! You are in shamefully rare company these days!

THE BAD NEWS... The once great NY Times is still hopelessly in the tank, reporting the Administration "company line" as fact in the "paper of record" [emphasis added]:

FRESH IDEA FOR NY TIMES 'REPORTERS'/EDITORS... Try reporting facts instead of White House spin. The fact of this matter is that unless you all know something that neither the Congress nor the Country seems to know, you have no idea whether the illegal warrantless NSA domestic spying program is eavesdropping on people "believed to have links with terrorists."

We realize the White House would like you to report it that way --- and though you scored many points with them doing exactly that prior to the War in Iraq, we'd have hoped you'd have learned a lesson by now. Apparently you haven't.

The fact that nobody outside of the Administration has any idea who is being tapped is just one of the reasons Ms. Wilson is calling for a full investigation. Had you read your own article, you might have understood that.

Keep up the bad work!

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Robert Parry's Consortium News has recently posted a beautifully-written piece by William Frey, M.D., called "Confessions of a Repentant Republican".

Dr. Frey is a former Bush supporter who has torn himself away from the propaganda and re-engaged with reality. And now he's writing about it. He can really write, too. Look at this:

A great introduction, is it not? Who could argue with such a reasonable presentation?

Actual Conservative George Will unleashes on Republican "Faux Conservatives" in his NEWSWEEK column this week.

While his column raises the question of why it has taken so long for Will to finally get firmly on board the bandwagon of honest-to-God Conservatism in calling out the Republican Party and their leaders for their phony use of the "Conservative" label for little more than cynical partisan expediency, The BRAD BLOG is impressed enough with his no-holds-barred column to award him our "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award".

We hope this award --- very rarely bestowed these days due to the overwhelming dearth of actual Conservatives willing to call out their fake "Conservative" brethren for what they are --- may soon find still more recipients as the Conservative Momement finally begins to distance themselves from the disaster that is the Bush Presidency and the failed Republican Leadership in Congress.

By way of making the case for Bush and the Republican-led Congress' complete avoidance of true Conservative values, consider this point amongst many from Will's latest piece:

While we have many and various policy disagreements with true Conservative philosophy, we welcome the general tenets of Conservativism as applied towards American discourse and policy-making. What we are appalled by however, and have been for some time, is the continuing phony use of the "Conservative" label for pure partisan gamesmanship and political opportunism. That, even while the supposed "Conservatives" in control of every branch of the Federal Government have grown its size --- including so-called non-military discretionary spending --- beyond anything that any of the most "Liberal" Presidents or Congresses have been able to do in the history of the country!

And yet, a majority of Republican voters, according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, continue to blindly support the anything-but-Conservative borrow-and-spend Republican "President" and Congress.

In that regard, Will is particularly on-target in his attack on the beseiged, disgraced and ethically-challenged Rep. Tom DeLay. In a blistering attack, Will describes the fallen U.S. House Majority Leader as one "who neither knows nor cares any more about limited government than a camel knows or cares about calculus."

He then continues to take on what he describes as the "faux conservatism" of today's Republican Party as sold out to the D.C. lobbyist's brand of what Will describes as "K Street conservatism."

Quoting Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), leader of the conservative Republican Study Committee who charges that some Republicans think "big government is good government if it's our government," Will unleashes on the entire "faux conservative" cabal in Washington:

He closes with a remarkably lucid assault on the abandonment of virtually all true Conservative values --- including a complete abdication of the bedrock Conservative notion of personal accountability --- by those now (for the moment) in power in Washington in general and in the White House's War on Iraq in specific:

All of which leaves us scratching our head in continued wonderment and asking, along with Eric Alterman, who commented on a new Pew Research poll released today by asking "You couldn't have figured this out, say, last November?"

Alterman's question was directed to the American people, a majority of whom for the first time, the Pew poll finds, now say "George W. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful" and that "By a 2-1 margin, people said the Bush administration has had a negative impact on politics and the way government works."

Setting aside what the people actually said last November --- since we have no real way of knowing due to the disastrous gutting of a once fairly-reliable and once fairly-transparent Electoral System in this country --- it's perfectly appropriate to direct Alterman's question towards Will. Where the hell was he last November?!

Nonetheless, given the dearth of Republicans who still maintain an actual set of Conservative Values --- better late than never, we guess --- we'll go ahead and award Will the coveted BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative Award" today. We offer it in the hopes of "shaking the bushes" to encourage other true Conservatives to step out from the shameful, murky, self-deceiving and destructive cynicism of Power-before-Policy and Politics-before-Country brand of "Faux Conservatism" that has hijacked and perhaps irreconcilably destroyed both the Conservative Movement in America and the Republican Party along with it.

{Thanks to Des for tips to both Will's and Alterman's pieces.}

Another intellectually-honest Republican is found!

Just in from AP...

In a posting title, "A Message From A Real Republican", thirty-year Republican party member, Dr. Garth Eldritch easily claims the latest "BRAD BLOG Intellectual Honesty Award".

We haven't been able to give one of those out to a Republican for quite a few weeks (months?) --- so we're pleased that BRAD BLOG commenter, "Bando Bling", has pointed us towards Eldritch's brilliant letter.

Please read the entire thing. Particularly you apologists for the Bush Administration who still consider yourselves either Republican or --- more ironically still --- "conservatives".

Here's a few key passages in the meantime. After describing the proud and storied history of a once great Republican party, Eldritch goes on to ask...

Indeed. And though the divisiveness Eldritch describes above was invented by --- and has now become a staple political weapon/strategy of --- GOP operatives towards only the goal of "staying in power" rather than fighting for the good of our country, it is not only Rightwingers who are guilty in the matter...

Our friend, the conservative (real conservative, not Fake "Bush Conservative") Teddy of the Bull Moose Forum, gets it right again. He starts off with a joke:

...And then goes on to compile a devasting summary of some of the top points of interest for Conservatives from last night's debate. Little wonder then, that Teddy is a multi-recipient of the rarely awarded BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative" Award!

Andrew Sullivan (who himself has already won the above mentioned and rarely given award) posts this "Email-of-the-Day" from one of his readers:

Kudos Unnamed Andrew Sullivan reader! You are the latest BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Conservative" Award Winner! Don't spend all that credibility in one place!

The case against Bush's failed execution of the War on Iraq is becoming clearer every day.

Best put this morning by Pro-Iraq Warrior, Andrew Sullivan, who said today:

And in regards to the damning report today from the U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq that Fallujah was completely bungled by the upper Civilian Command (after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the boys have gone out of their way to suggest they wouldn't make the Vietnam mistake of getting in the way of Military Command on the ground), Sullivan --- a longtime BRAD BLOG "Intellectually Honest Republican" Award winner --- was also on the money:

Sullivan's last question there is a doozy. Just imagine if Al Gore had executed this "War on Terror" in exactly the same fashion and as disastrously. Imagine what the Republicans would be saying with 1000+ dead, no WMD's to be found, no exit strategy anywhere on the horizon, and if "insurgents" in Fallujah were now using the arms we gave them against us now as they are! Can you imagine?!

The blatant and outrageous hypocrisy at work amongst the apologists on the Right at this moment is surely at an all time high (or low). Just incredible.

Yes, it's rare, but BRAD BLOG readers know that from time to time we find Republicans with some measure of intellectual honesty and recognize them for their courage in doing the right thing against all odds. Given all the other Republicans, with something less than either intellectualism or honesty that we highlight here regularly (and those who highlight themselves in our Comments sections with a similar lack of distinction), it seems only fair to point out when a Republican outs himself as having intellectual honesty even at the risk of incurring the wrath of the usually lockstepping GOP.

The latest winner of this coveted honor is Richie Robb, Republican from West Virginia who ran in the May Gubernatorial Primary there and who has been appointed by his party as an official Elector for George W. Bush. Only problem? According to Politics1.com, Robb has no intention, and neither is he legally bound, to actually cast his electoral vote in favor of Bush...

If the election is another close one, Robb's one electoral vote could make the difference this year! So congratulations Mr. Robb! You've earned the coveted and rare BRAD BLOG "Intellectual Honest Conservative" Award! I'm sure you'll not let us down this November!

(Blogged by Brad from an Espresso shop in Westport, WA...)

I've been making the case for years that George W. Bush and his supporters are certainly not "Conservative". Not in any classic, Goldwater sense for sure. I've taken to referring to them as Fake Conservatives. Conservative when it serves them politically, and beyond that, happy to spend into oblivion and/or outstretch the arms of the Federal Government into just about any area of private life they wish to. Nothing "conservative" about either of those ideas.

And it looks like Pat Buchanan, of all folks, is helping to make the case.

Drudge breaks the skinny on Buchanan's new book, WHERE THE RIGHT WENT WRONG: How Neoconservatives Subverted The Reagan Revolution And Hijacked the Bush Presidency.

I'm on the move, so don't have too much time. Will just post a couple of quotes from the book. See the link to Drudge above for a full boatload that are sure to put a burr under Rove, Rush and Hannity's Fake Conservative saddles.

Hate to give it to a borderline Nazi sympathizer like Pat Buchanan, but it does look like he's the recipient of the latest rarely given "Intellectually Honest Conservative" Award as occasionally bestowed by the BRAD BLOG. And the republic gently weeps.