[Trollstomper]

You write: "For a certain kind of personality, ripping into true heroes of conservatism somehow narrows the accomplishment gap. "

And what is Gaffney? chopped liver, or are you clueless? And Mona Charen, and David Horowitz, and Cal Thomas, etc.

Get out of the personality ditch and look at the facts and decide if you think it's all one 5-year-long series of mistakes by Norquist -- and that this "hero" with all his imputed intrepidity could not in all of America find, in that time or now, Muslims who are not associated in any/any/any way with terror and its supporters --- or who can find a way to fund this exercise with non-Gulf state money? And is the mere suggestion that there are enough troubling connections to warrant such a search being undertaken somehow "small minded," destructive and counter to "principled achievement?"

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..get out of the personality ditch and look at the facts...

You can't take anything out of the personality ditch when it comes to American politics, mate.

That's why I'm not going to view the Norquist case in isolation. Because I've seen, too many times, the way the conservative fraternity in your country will turn on one of its own like a pack of sharks. A lifetime spent fighting the good fight counts for nothing when you cross the establishment, or fail to meet impossible demands. Witness Senator McCarthy, or Newt Gingrich, or Pat Buchanan. There is a dark side to any intensely competitive fraternity whereby if someone high up gets knocked off his perch, everyone moves up a rung. Can I draw a parallel to the USSR, where in turn, Trotsky, Yagoda and Beria were denounced and destroyed by their successors? Not a parallel comparing our side to them, more to the process- that one day a Gaffney or a Horowitz may in turn wear a slanderous appellation, like Pitchfork Pat or 'Traitor' Norquist.