Reactionary

I want to blog this quote from an interview with Nixonland author Rick Perlstein (thanks, PZ) because it's just so smart.

Past liberal leaders had a much better sense of the way conservative ideas were "reactionary"--that is, automatically opposed to change no matter what form the change took. They understood that you pushed past the resistance of reactionaries--you didn't let them cow you. Then, if the program truly is enlightened and well designed--like social security, Medicare, and the 1964 civil rights act--the reactionaries will claim they were for these things all along (they may even campaign to "save" social security and "save" Medicare and "preserve" the "true spirit" of the civil rights act)--and then automatically oppose the next change that comes along. It's a cycle, you have to expect it, and most of all, you can't act shocked (like many in the Obama administration seem to feel shocked) when it happens again.

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