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.