Who doesn't like utopia?

Dana B. has a good response to a point by Juan Cole today. It's a point Digby and others have made many times by now, but it's worded just about perfectly here. Here's Cole:

It would be ironic if the collapse of Iraq really did discredit political Islam. But I fear it is more likely to discredit democracy and the United States. It is hard to discredit utopian ideologies.

Here's Dana:

Movement conservatism, as presently practiced, has become a utopian ideology.

You can see it every day, in the writings of both conservative leaders and their followers on the blogosphere. Leaders are followed absolutely until they can no longer be defended. And at that point it is the leader who failed. Never conservatism.

Somewhere, it is imagined, there is a conservative leader who would implement true conservatism in just the right way, leading to absolute growth, absolute peace, and a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. Sometimes St. Ronald Reagan is trotted out to exemplify such a leader, ignoring the 1982 tax hike, the Iran-Contra mess, Ed Meese, and all the other scandals of that time.

Somehow, conservatism has become a utopian ideology. This makes it as hard to kill as Dracula.

As I said, this is nothing new. Digby has made this point ("Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed") many times. However, this perfectly pinpoints the problem. Conservatism will never be held accountable for being wrong because a) it's an idea, not a person, b) Dems haven't spent the last 30+ years demonizing the word "conservative" like "liberal" has been demonized, and c) hey, who doesn't want a free and peaceful Iraq? Who doesn't want to pay less taxes? It sounds like such a great idea that it just must have been somebody's failure, not conservatism's failure.