People sometimes wonder where the bit about ”The Leader” or “Our Leader” or “Teh Leader” comes from. Above is one example.

This is a billboard that was erected in Orlando, Fla., shortly after Our Leader won re-election in 2004. It was sponsored by Clear Channel, or at least the Orlando office of Clear Channel. And it was really like something out of North Korea. But you know what? At the time, late 2004, a lot of people still subscribed to this mindset.

That was one thing, and maybe the most significant thing, that creeped me out about the Republican Party. The idea of undying loyalty - The Leader is good and true and we shall stay the course until the inevitable victory occurs! - it was just sycophancy. But loyalty - faith - for conservatives was the chief virtue. The faith must be maintained, at all times; even in the face of disaster. For the only thing that will get you through disaster is faith itself; an unswerving dedication to the cause, to the individual leader(s), and history will redeem you.

Some, the 25 percenters, still hold true to this. In a sense, they can do nothing else.

The rest of the country long ago came to see this abiding loyalty as obstinacy, this belief as delusion and a lack of perspective. But that creates a tremendous problem for the Republican party, which has so tightly bound itself to Our Leader. His failings then become the failings of the party, and the movement - fairly, when the party and movement so often fell in lockstep behind him.

Now, as Peggy Noonan writes in (another) good column in today’s Wall Street Journal, Republicans are going to suffer for their years of unstinting fealty:

The Bush White House, faced with the series of losses from 2005 through ‘08, has long claimed the problem is Republicans on the Hill and running for office. They have scandals, bad personalities, don’t stand for anything. That’s why Republicans are losing: because they’re losers.

All true enough!

But this week a House Republican said publicly what many say privately, that there is another truth. “Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures,” said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.

The party, Mr. Davis told me, is “an airplane flying right into a mountain.” Analyses of its predicament reflect an “investment in the Bush presidency,” but “the public has just moved so far past that.” …

<snip>

What happens to the Republicans in 2008 will likely be dictated by what didn’t happen in 2005, and ‘06, and ‘07. The moment when the party could have broken, on principle, with the administration – over the thinking behind and the carrying out of the war, over immigration, spending and the size of government – has passed. What two years ago would have been honorable and wise will now look craven. They’re stuck.

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

What was once seen as a key virtue is now recognized as the party’s greatest weakness. But the party cannot get past this, not so long as Our Leader is around. Having pledged fealty to him, they must remain loyal - for what is worse, in the eyes of the base, than a loyal compatriot deserting the Leader in his time of need?