Conservatives’ embrace of “Atlas Shrugged” today is nothing more than blinkered escapist fantasy — rather like a besieged army turning to Norse mythology or J.R.R. Tolkien to boost morale…

The utilitarian argument for free markets — that they’re the most efficient means of determining the value of scarce resources and allocating them — is a far cry from the sanctification of capitalism one finds in Randism.

From whom else besides Ayn Rand, for instance, can one find such a full-throated defense of so-called Big Business, which in a 1962 lecture she dubbed “America’s persecuted minority”? Indeed, Miss Rand’s writings are catnip for those who seek to deflect any and all blame for the current economic crisis away from the private sector. Like the airtight religious belief system that it essentially is, Randian capitalism can never stumble or fail — it can only be betrayed…

Mired in fantasy, intoxicated by legend, embittered in non-reality: This is no way for an opposition party to act.