Dead Conservatives

Peggy Noonan writes on the "Weeping Reagan" Time magazine cover:

Could I be correct that they only front-page weeping Republicans, and only laud conservatives when they're dead?

Peg o' My heart, you are completely correct.

Old, dead Republicans are kind of wonderful:

Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element.

Oops...

Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

Hey! Time passes. The 1980s are the 21st century's 1950s.