Bush and authoritarianism

Glenn Greenwald talks about John Dean's new book Conservatives without Conscience. I haven't read it, but according to Greenwald, Dean's basic argument seems to be that "conservativism" has mutated into "authoritarianism". That seems to fit what I see from the outside: the abandonment of many conservative principles, the eagerness for war, the demonization of dissent, etc. The fact that John Dean was one of Nixon's minions involved in the Watergate scandal is rather ironic. If former Nixon folks are saying Bush is too authoritarian, I think that probably says something pretty scary about how much Kool-Aid this administration is willing to drink.

(I bet most of my readers know that the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" means believing blindly in a stupid or insane idea, and know where it comes from. For those of you who don't, there's an explanation here.)