As published for The Washington Post on February 26th, 2010:

Such is the zeal in portions of the tea party right that it is not enough to sweep out living members of the establishment such as John McCain. A brisk, ideological scrubbing must be applied to history as well.

So Glenn Beck, speaking recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference, identified a great enemy of human freedom as . . . Teddy Roosevelt. Beck highlighted this damning Roosevelt quote: “We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used.”

Ah, you don’t discern the scandal in this statement? Look closer. “This is not our Founders’ idea of America,” explained Beck. “And this is the cancer that’s eating at America. It is big government — it’s a socialist utopia.” Evidently, real conservatives defend wealth that is dishonorably gained and then wasted.

The problem with America, apparently, is not just the Great Society or even the New Deal; it is the Square Deal. Or maybe Beck is just being too timid. Real, hairy-chested libertarians pin the blame on Abraham Lincoln, who centralized federal power at the expense of the states to pursue an unnecessary war — a view that Ron Paul, the winner of the CPAC presidential straw poll, has endorsed.

Read the full article here