What is it with conservatives?

I'm beginning to think that something is seriously wrong with the top of the Republican party.

Oh, hell, no I'm not. What I'm beginning to think is that the rot is far more widespread than I thought.

As John McKay at archy says:

To Romney and to them, the problem was that the dog crapped on the car, not that the dog was terrified into incontinence. Once the dog's bowels were empty and the windows were clean, the problem was solved. The family hit the road with the dog still terrified and now also wet and shivering. To Romney, [and the reporters], that was a satisfactory solution.

I think most people will have no problem seeing the indifference to life and suffering that this anecdote reveals. Others will make a connection to Bill Frist's cat killing and Dick Cheney's canned hunts. ... Coturnix just reminded me of two more datapoints in the Conservative equals cruel formula: Bush as a child blowing up frogs and Bush as governor mocking a woman whose death warrant he had signed. I think both of these support my position. ...

[F]orty years after the only time he went hunting, Romney suddenly felt the need to join the NRA and go on a canned hunt for quail with major donors. Hunting played no part in his life, but he had no problem shooting trapped birds if that would impress a voting constituency. Killing was just a campaign prop, no different that putting on a funny hat and eating fried ethic foods on a stick at the county fair.

Sociopaths have no regard for suffering. It's a well-known danger signal, the torturing of animals, or the repeated abuse of them - the total lack of empathy. And we've seen what power in the hands of Bush and Cheney has accomplished.

Go read archy for his entire argument.