CPAC, Day One: Angry White Males Still Angry

SMILE WHEN YOU'RE WINNING McCain (Photo: Getty Images) It's unnecessary to load Google Maps on my phone. The poster-size photographs of splayed, blood-soaked aborted fetuses are a pretty good clue that I have arrived at the 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference. Either that or the world's most enthusiastic OBGYN convention.

The conference opens with a 1974 video clip of Ronald Reagan. David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, proclaims that the GOP must return to Reagan's principles. Columnist Robert Novak takes the stage and explains that "Reagan is everybody's favorite president," and has "faded into the mists of myth instead of reality." Five old white men praise Reagan to the skies during a panel discussion. Every other word is "Reagan"—it's like witnessing a vicious act of necrophilia.