Adam Serwer writes about Jay Bybee’s attempt to get off the hook:

So Bybee knew he was breaking the law in allowing the use of torture, but you have to understand, he only did it because he really wanted to be a federal judge. That’s not exculpatory information, that’s motive.

Exactly right. But you have to understand what Bybee is: he’s someone who made a career as a movement conservative apparatchik. In his world, following orders and getting rewarded for his obedience was what it was all about; he’s completely shocked to find that the rules have changed.

And here’s the thing: most prominent Republicans are just the same. We wonder how someone as hapless as John Boehner could be minority leader, why one Congressman after another abjectly apologizes to Rush Limbaugh, and so on; the answer is that they’re hollow men, careerists who thought they had a safe ride. If someone like Newt Gingrich seems like a giant in his party these days, that’s because, say what you like about him (and I don’t like much about him!), he got into the business when doing so involved taking some actual risks.

And that, I think, is why the Republicans have fallen apart so completely since losing the election. Careerism is what held the party together; an environment in which the party no longer has the patronage to reward all its loyalists, and may not even be able to protect apparatchiks who broke the law, destroys the whole system.

Now, there are a lot of people with real conviction in the GOP these days. Unfortunately, those convictions include the idea that Barack Obama is a socialist, or maybe a fascist, that gays are the greatest threat we face, and … well, you get the picture. It’s a fervent base, but not, unless Obama really really messes up, an election-winning coalition.

Sic transit — and good riddance.