Conor Friedersdorf has been tireless in pointing out the various hypocrises among conservatives in countenancing rhetoric that is either offensive or just plain stupid. Here he picks apart the odd relationship that many conservatives have with Glenn Beck, who has a lot of nominally conservative opinions, but is not an establishment or movement figure:

On reading Mr. Beck’s defenders, I can’t help but think that their judgment and integrity are being corroded by politics. The ideological battle between conservatives and liberals has become for them the most important struggle in American life — in order to win it, they are willing to defend and count as allies anyone in their insular world who advances the appropriate side in what they regard as a two-sided battle for the country’s soul. The most honest among them are explicit in arguing that their ends justify whatever rhetorical means it takes to achieve them. Even worse, they are using this total political warfare as a litmus test — temperament and political philosophy are insufficient to be a conservative in their minds, because they’ve redefined the term such that it demands loyalty to a political coalition and even the particular tactics it employs.

But shouldn’t this be a “shocked, shocked” kind of situation? People in politics, whether they’re politicians or activists like David Horowitz who are devoted to advancing a particular movement, are often ready to test the outer limits of sense and credibility to advance their goals. For them, the stakes are simply too high, perhaps in the ideological or the wheeling-and-dealing sense, and/or because their livelihoods, reputations, and self-images depend on the fight. And politics is all about ends – hashing out interests, apportioning tax and regulatory burdens and benefits. In some sense the ends are, frankly, all that there is.

This is why politicians and pundits (at least, the partisan ones, which is to say, most of them) lie all the time. That’s what they do, because they must, because it’s a proven method for getting what you want. Thus, Jonah Goldberg and David Horowitz supporting Glenn Beck’s craziness because it supposedly advances conservative interests in the long, twilight struggle against American liberalism strikes me as unremarkable. What else are they going to do?

What’s really striking about the conservative meltdown isn’t the cynicism of right-wing pundits. It’s the degree to which those pundits have become disengaged from the system. When we talk about ends and means in this case, the “means” are of course the American political system itself, which allows for a great deal of crazy behavior. But what if you no longer believe the system is working, that we’re reliving the Weimar Republic, that Obama is a traitor of some kind? These are the kinds of things we’re hearing from Beck and other precincts on the right. If you cynically support that, it’s not just cynicism but a kind of nihilism – you think on some level, the political system has failed and no longer accept its basic premises – i.e., that power changes hands constantly, that policies are crafted by give and take, that the president cannot impose a new system of government by fiat, that your opponents have some claim to legitimacy.

If you don’t believe those things, then you shouldn’t be in politics. Because there can be no politics – at least not in America – without them. If you do believe in them but pretend you don’t to rev up your “base,” well, that’s just as bad, and maybe worse. And on a practical level – again, the ultimate test in politics – this path leads nowhere. In a country where most people don’t pay close attention to politics, behaving like a bunch of nuts isn’t a ticket to electoral or policy success – that is, the normal way that you put your political ideas into effect. And the way political coalitions are built and power is accumulated in a democracy is by engaging the other side. If all you’re able to do is demonize it, you’ll never get anywhere.