Are Conservatives less willing to rethink their ideas?

[PCFiend]

conservatism, after largely losing out to liberalism over the most of the last hundred years and most certainly since the counter-culture revolution of the late sixties, has seen a resurgence beginning with with the rallying point of William F. Buckley in the fifties and sixties and coalescing around Rush Limbaugh and Ronald Reagan starting in the eighties, and how the advance of liberalism has been largely halted since that time

Some conservatives ,like Kristoll , Wolfowitz, and Cheney saw America as uniquely positioned to remake the globe into something benefiting a small group of Americans. They felt we had the power to remake the middle east and they were jumping at the chance to attack Iraq. It was not about removing an evil dictator.
At home they saw an opportunity to consolidate money and power into a few hands. That would be a positive because only they saw how much better the world would be if they controlled it.
They were not the conservatives of Americas past. They were elitists and power and money grabbers disguising themselves as ultra conservatives and lovers of America. They were thinking of themselves. It would be hard to find a more discredited group in history nowadays. Rumsfield,Kristoll.Wolfie,Cheney and Bush are now seen for what they are. Their childish idea that the rich, corporations and wall street would be able to regulate themselves with the public interest in mind is scary stupid. But they got their way . if we can survive this mess, we can go back to the old dem and repub wars ,which differ less in ideology but more in technique, we will be better off.

Very true, both these statements, and my more centrist remarks aside you both have valid points. I just think that the Democratic response to such ridiculous amounts of greed and general pea-brained over-compensation by powerful Repubs is to just take the hit and move on with their posturing instead of really considering how it will effect the common man. It is frustrating to see them go with something like, say allowing them to cut education from the stimulus bill:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/06/stimulus/index.html

when, IMO, that is the crux of our nations future, and the repubs don’t want to saddle the future kids into debt but they will cut funding for their education? This is crazy. I just think, besides the typical James Bond=villain-ish schemes of Cheney and the like, that party lines tend to make even well-meaning politicians do horrible and stupid things.