American conservatism is inherently rational at its intellectual base. No one can read the writings of Jefferson, Franklin, and the other Founders without immediately coming to that conclusion. Any assault on rationality is therefore anti-conservative. And anti-American too.
I'll second that.
Conservatives have persuaded the electorate in the last 20 years because we've had rational arguments on our side. The promotion of ID is a break from that into irrationality.
Many conservatives like Bush obviously just haven't been exposed to the massive evidence for evolution (or have been hoodwinked by slick arguments against it, without spending any real quality time with the evidence). Once the MSM gets in gear on this issue, and they are beginning to, the public will reject touchy feely ID and accept the evidence for evolution as truth.
Conservatives will lose this argument, if they continue it. Which will be the first argument in recent memory where they are factually wrong. It will demonstrate the conservatives can be factually wrong on something, which means they *could* be factually wrong on other things.
We need to end this fight before it really gets started.