Impotent, old, rich white men shout at clouds

I can't wait until Wednesday when 80 prominent conservative "thinkers" will unveil "the Mount Vernon Statement" in homage of George Washington. The organizers of this historic event bill it as the next generation of the 1960 "Sharon Statement", which was produced at Bill Buckley's house in Connecticut by a group of young conservatives. The "Sharon Statement" served to define the conservative movement for years.

To appeal to the new generation,the headliners of the Mount Vernon Statement are well-known conservative foundation "welfare queens" Ed Feulner, who receives several times the salary of the President of the United States as the President of the non-profit Heritage Foundation, former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and former head of the commission on pornography Ed Meese, Media Research Center leader Brent Bozell, leading American Wahhabist and President of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist, Christian Right leader Tony Perkins of the Family Research Center and American Conservative Union head David Keene, who puts on CPAC every year. Almost all of them now qualify for Social Security and Medicare. All they are missing is David Horowitz, the 71-year old veteran of Ramparts magazine and a born-again conservative. This is a very exciting line-up, which would qualify as the Old Timers' Game.

One of the intriguing elements of the original "Sharon Statement" and Bill Buckley's role in building a conservative mvement was the exclusion of the John Birch Society. Bill Buckley, with the permission of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, wrote a long manifesto against the John Birch Society and had it read into the Congressional record with the approval of Senator Tower. The diatribe was then widely distributed to alert conservatives that the John Birch Society was beyond the pale.

That's what makes this crew's association with the Sharon Statement intriguing. David Keene's CPAC this year is being co-sponsored by the John Birch Society for the first time I remember. It's probably the promise of funding from the Koch Industries, whose family members always funded the John Birchers in the past. Buckley's original statement was also a salvo against the old conservatives like the Taft Republicans. It was a young man's challenge to the Old Guard. Here is the Old Guard, very old in fact. Are they just declaring their position as the leaders of American conservatism or are they in fact actually interested in drawing anyone new to their ranks? I guess you would have to pass a class, race and age test.

A coalition of tea party groups and right-wing activists will be using Keene's CPAC this year to support a guiding document of their own--The Contract from America. Semantically, I'm not sure whether this is a secessionist document, or a message from "real Americans". And the old ambulance chaser himself Newt Gingrich is following up his 1994 Contract with America , with another "New Contract with America" in the hopes that his student Eric Cantor can recapture the House, reliving Newt's glory days before he fell because of a sex scandal.

All this nonsense only underscores what I have said before that the conservative nomenklatura is too fossilized to change. Reminiscing about the Gipper is fine but two younger generations will have no clue what they are talking about. Intrestingly, all but Meese turned against Ronald Reagan in his last two years because of his changing stance to the Soviet Union and his desire for the reduction in nuclear arms. None of these men have produced an original idea in years and now they sure retire to their porches and shout at people on their lawns.