If you’ve ever pondered the paradox of why conservative cranks who are against Big Government seem so fond of, well, running for government office, ponder no more. Thomas Frank has the answer: So they can destroy it from the inside.

Oh, that sounds suspiciously like a lefty knee-jerk plaint, a progressive’s mewling sound bite about nearly 30 years of conservatives controlling at least one branch of the government.

Surely The New Right isn’t intentionally tossing wrenches into the gears, right? Its purported philosophy of limited government just sort of misguides it, right? No. In his new book The Wrecking Crew, Frank examines how this modern strain of conservativism– fond of streaking on the warpaint of rebels and outsiders — is quite open about its aims of methodically destroying open, honest government. Some of the stuff Grover Norquist says in here makes Karl Rove look like a (hairless) Ewok. And the thorough account of Jack Abramoff’s amoral hackdom — shilling for any rich comer, whether it’s South Africa’s apartheid government or a sweatshop cartel in the North Pacific — is almost thrilling.

“Government failures can be made into conservatism’s fuel, even when it’s conservative bungling that has brought them about,” Frank writes. “Consider in this respect the massive and concerted effort to describe FEMA’s spectacular incompetence in New Orleans not as an inevitable product of the ‘market-based’ state but as typical government behavior, the sort of thing we should always expect from Washington, regardless of who’s in charge.”

And if government’s the problem, what do we do? Why, vote in the people who promise things like “trimming the fat” and “accountability” and — what’s that word McCain keeps dribbling from his chalky jowls? — “change.” In reality, though these “taxcut-and-spenders” have privatized what government services they could, kicked out experts and brought in cronies, politicized the bureaucracy and created a Revolving Door 2.0 that not only rewards political and financial favors for corporate pals but cleverly shifts the lifeblood of politics — the payola system built on earmarks and campaign contributions — rightward.

It’s a heady but depressing book. And while it’s nice to think that a single election can bring change, Frank knows the problem is deep in the bones of the republic. One of the most telling scenes occurs at tony K Street gladhand spot, where Frank is dining with a friend.

Frank writes: “Sweeping his hand so as to take in our fellow diners and all the contractors’ offices beyond, he said, ‘So you think all of this is just going to go away if Obama gets in?’”