Once in a Lifetime

Paul Krugman repurposes David Byrne's lyrics to fit 2007 era conservatives:

Above all, people claim to be shocked by the Bush administration’s authoritarianism, its disdain for the rule of law. But a full half-century has passed since The National Review proclaimed that “the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail,” and dismissed as irrelevant objections that might be raised after “consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal” — presumably a reference to the document known as the Constitution of the United States.



Now, as they survey the wreckage of their cause, conservatives may ask themselves: “Well, how did we get here?” They may tell themselves: “This is not my beautiful Right.” They may ask themselves: “My God, what have we done?”

But their movement is the same as it ever was. And Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir. [From Same Old Party - New York Times]

Krugman acknowledges his borrowing in a subsequent blog post:

A number of readers seemed to enjoy the Talking Heads reference at the end of yesterday’s column. Here’s how it happened: I knew the piece would be about various ways in which Bush is just like previous conservative standard-bearers; writing it, I found myself using a repeated phrase — “People claim to be shocked” — and realized that it had a preacher-like tone to it; and that led me to David Byrne’s preacherish lyrics. [From Once in a lifetime - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog]