Old hippies never die, they just morph into conservatives' nightmares

Paul Waldman has a good piece on how the Republicans are still Haunted by the Hippie American Prospect Online 10/24/07.

If you thought we'd get through this campaign without the people who were too square to be down with the scene in the 1960s once again venting their resentment at their cooler peers, think again. But this time around, it's even less likely to work than it has in the past.

Not that they won't be trying. Imagine the quivers of delight over at RNC headquarters when they learned last week that back in June, senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton inserted a $1 million earmark into the health and education appropriations bill for the Museum at Bethel Woods in upstate New York, commemorating the Woodstock concert that took place there in 1969.

Cue the wa-wa pedal, bust out the love beads, stay away from the brown acid, blah blah blah -- these moments call for a full-scale mobilization of clichés. The best may have come from the conservative magazine Human Events, which blared on its website, "Earmarxists Commemorate the Hippie Summer of Love." They must have been waiting a long time to use that one.

Tags: authoritarianism, hippies, republican party