August 17, 1998 was the day conservatism began to die in America.

On that day, President Clinton admitted in a nationally televised address that he engaged in an improper relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky—several months after declaring that such a relationship was fictional. “Indeed, I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate,” Clinton confessed. “In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.”

It was a shameful moment for Clinton—yet the country didn’t seem to care. Only a third of the American people strongly supported the impeachment and removal of Clinton from office, despite clear evidence that he had committed perjury and obstructed justice. A majority of Americans bought the “progressive” argument that Clinton was the victim of a political witch-hunt by prudish right-wing Republicans: Clinton was ultimately impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998, but the Senate acquitted him in February 1999.

Several days after Clinton’s acquittal, veteran conservative activist Paul Weyrich wrote a controversial open letter to fellow members of the right in which he declared that the conservative movement had effectively collapsed. Weyrich said that conservative activists made two critical mistakes: “First of all, we have assumed that a majority of Americans basically agrees with our point of view. That has been the premise upon which we have tried to build any number of institutions, and indeed our whole strategy…The second premise has been that if we could just elect enough conservatives, we could get our people in as Congressional leaders and they would fight to implement our agenda.”

Weyrich noted that the right’s political successes “…did not result in the adoption of our agenda. The reason, I think, is that politics itself has failed. And politics has failed because of the collapse of the culture. The culture we are living in becomes an ever-wider sewer. In truth, I think we are caught up in a cultural collapse of historic proportions, a collapse so great that it simply overwhelms politics.”

Weyrich stated that “…it is impossible to ignore the fact that the United States is becoming an ideological state. The ideology of Political Correctness, which openly calls for the destruction of our traditional culture, has so gripped the body politic, has so gripped our institutions, that it is even affecting the Church. It has completely taken over the academic community. It is now pervasive in the entertainment industry, and it threatens to control literally every aspect of our lives…Let me be perfectly frank about it. If there really were a moral majority out there, Bill Clinton would have been driven out of office months ago. It is not only the lack of political will on the part of Republicans, although that is part of the problem. More powerful is the fact that what Americans would have found absolutely intolerable only a few years ago, a majority now not only tolerates but celebrates. Americans have adopted, in large measure, the MTV culture that we so valiantly opposed just a few years ago, and it has permeated the thinking of all but those who have separated themselves from the contemporary culture…I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn't mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn't going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important.”

Back in 1999, some conservatives rejected Weyrich’s assertions and denounced him as a pessimist. I couldn’t figure out why certain conservatives had an issue with what Weyrich said: his claims seemed so accurate as to be beyond debate.

Nearly ten years later, can anyone on the right deny that Weyrich called it correctly? Since Weyrich wrote his open letter, we’ve had one Presidential election in which a far-left candidate received the majority of the popular vote, and another in which a far-left candidate came within three million votes of capturing the White House (only two decades after an equally liberal candidate failed miserably in his effort to unseat President Reagan). We are now just months away from the most hard-left Democrat President since LBJ assuming ownership of Pennsylvania Avenue’s most famous piece of real estate. Culturally, we’ve become even trashier than we were in the ‘90s, with Paris Hilton, Michael Moore and Gossip Girl stinking up the pop-culture joint.

If Barack Obama wins with a majority of the vote, it will complete the political and cultural alteration that began ten years ago. In 1998, Americans didn’t care about Clinton’s lies and licentiousness because the economy was doing well; in 2008, Americans seemingly don’t care about Obama’s dishonesty and double-dealing because he promises to restore the economy to the (perceived) health of the Clinton years. 1998 was the first indication that Americans valued certain things above “traditional morality”; 2008 could be the most significant indication of the same.

If we were a truly conservative country, a candidate like Obama would have been regarded as a fringe, Dennis Kucinich-style nutcase instead of a serious candidate for the Presidency. It can be argued that Obama figured out something that the right was too shortsighted to recognize: that America is not in any tangible way a conservative or center-right nation, that no one ideology truly dominates the country, and that due to America’s lack of commitment to any one ideology, someone who can market himself effectively has a chance to become President regardless of his ideology. Obama’s speeches may be content-free, but they are always well-delivered and he always looks good delivering them—which may be all he needs in a country that values image above ideology.

Weyrich was right: America doesn’t really place a premium on conservative, traditionalist values. Sadly, America places a premium on glamour, beauty, articulate voices, clean-cut images. Like Clinton, Obama understands this shallow, soulless aspect of America, and he knows how to play to those who worship empty images. Like Clinton, this new master of illusion will exploit America’s love of the superficial to make his next overseas “Presidential” trip official.