GOP's fuhrerprinzip.

William F. Buckley's version of totalitarian "conservatism" (see "Buckley's Totalitarian 'Conservatism,'" facing page) is certainly in vogue with the contemporary Republican Party leadership. Recent essays published by the national Republican Party's website take Buckley's totalitarian "conservatism" a step further by designating dissent from the White House line as "treason."

"The question needs to be asked: When did the right to freedom of speech trump the crime of participating in an act called treason?" wrote GOP pundit Nancy Salvato on June 3. "Certainly a case can be made against those who work in the media and deliberately undermine the current Republican administration's efforts in the war on terror while purposely pushing their own agenda.... We are truly in a war on terrorism yet there is a Fifth Column who, at the very least, commits slander against our leaders."

That "Fifth Column," Salvato insists, includes those who dare criticize Bush administration policies and especially people who join with "terrorists to encourage the election of the 'Not Bush' candidate...." In other words: If you have the temerity to support a candidate other than the incumbent, you're a terrorist-loving traitor.

Fellow GOP pundit Thomas Segel similarly maintains that "those on the left hand side of politics can no longer wave the banner of patriot while they spew out hate-filled rhetoric against the national administration and the nation's war against terrorism.... Historically, during times of war and other national emergencies, this country has united around the Commander in Chief.... Those who have abandoned those traditions are far from being patriotic."

The true American concept of patriotism was best expressed by Theodore Roosevelt: "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country." The concept of "patriotism" embraced by the GOP pundits cited above is more akin to fuhrerprinzip, the "leader principle" of the German National Socialist (Nazi) Party.

"We have in our movement developed this loyalty in following the leader, this blind obedience of which all the others know nothing and which gave to us the power to surmount everything," explained Hitler in 1933. "Our conscience is clearly and exactly defined," elaborated Nazi labor leader Robert Ley. "Only what Adolf Hitler, our Fuhrer, commands, allows, or does not allow is our conscience."