Man, talk about the base getting restless:
I do not track politics closely — I’m a pragmatic independent who actually had some nice things to say about Ronald Reagan. My political interest is to keep an eye out for policies which impact deficits and interest rates, taxes and spending, monetary policy and consumer sentiment.
I don’t ignore politics, but I don’t obsess over it either. I’m not a member of any political party, and for professional reasons, I do not vote in presidential elections (save your emails, your wasting your time).
However, when an Op/Ed from a normally conservative paper has lines in it like: "Mr Bush is now close to destroying the Reagan revolution," it makes you sit up and take notice:
IT should have been the crowning moment of his administration, the opportunity to exercise one of his most important privileges as President by picking two new judges to serve on the Supreme Court, thereby stamping his mark on American society for the next few decades, as only a few presidents have done before him. Instead, President Bush’s astonishingly short-sighted decision last week to nominate a close colleague with no judicial track record for the Supreme Court, following an earlier uninspired choice, risks condemning his administration to being remembered as the most debilitating since the sorry rule of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. There is no pleasure in recording this. This newspaper is second to none in its pro-American sentiments; in the early Bush years it devoted much ink to defending the President against the often malevolent and ignorant attacks of a congenitally anti-American European media. But we know a lost cause when we see one: the longer President Bush occupies the White House the more it becomes clear that his big-government domestic policies, his preference for Republican and business cronies over talented administrators, his lack of a clear intellectual compass and his superficial and often wrong-headed grasp of international affairs – all have done more to destroy the legacy of Ronald Reagan, a President who halted then reversed America’s post-Vietnam decline, than any left-liberal Democrat or European America-hater could ever have dreamed of. As one astute American conservative commentator has already observed, President Bush has morphed into the Manchurian Candidate, behaving as if placed among Americans by their enemies to do them damage.
The entire column is astounding; If you want to get a better understanding on why the right wing of the blogsphere is foaming at the mouth, this piece will do it.
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Source:
George Bush, the Manchurian candidate
thebusinessonline, October 09, 2005
http://www.thebusinessonline.com/SectionStories.aspx?
SectionID=F200D393-0200-421B-894F-33C0717ACBD6&menu=1/3
I think the proper expression of the predicament of the right is ‘hoist with their own petard’.
Ah yes. Advocate for unrestrained business influence on govt, and then whine about cronyism and corruption!
The absymal failures of govt and policy we see now are not unconnected with rightwing ideology. They are the predictable outcome of that ideology, expressed via disparaging govt & civil service, reducing necessary taxation, driving serious and independent analysts out of govt, etc.
In fact the success of the so-called populist right has been based on manipulation and lies all along. Now we see what happens when their rubber hits the road:
Failure. After failure. After failure.
God what a shock to the rightwing ego, that has sucked for so many decades on the fantasy that the left was intellectually inferior!
Welcome to reality. If you’re strong, reflective, smart, and serious, you might survive. Otherways, dudes, you’re toast, and it’ll be goodbye and good riddance.
I linked over and read your “who I am” for the first time. Laughed. Thought my husband could have written that and then read it to him.
I was an independent who has turned into a staunch Dem the last five years, and now find myself becoming somewhat of an activist at age 62. Hopefully the country will live through the incompetence of the last few years. I do worry about the future and the huge debt we are leaving my grandchildren. And maybe some day again I can respect a republican and consider giving him/her my vote.
My husband likes McCain and I used to like him too, before he sucked up to Bush in the 04 campaign. But I seriously doubt the republican party will allow him to be nominated.
Again, thanks for your wonderful blog. I consider it and Cunning Realist my “balance” to the progressive blogs I read. And I have really learned something besides from coming here.
Well, I track decidely to the other end of the spectrum from the previous two posters. If I had to make a comparison for Bush; when it comes to domestic policies, I see many shades of Nixon. It is very frustrating.
Bush’s nominee to replace O’Connor is Harriet Miers
keeps gettin’ better…This newspaper is second to none in its pro-American sentiments; in the early Bush years it devoted much ink to defending the President against the often malevolent and ignorant attacks of a congenitally anti-American European me…
ElamBend has it right. Like Nixon, Bush has done as much to destroy the Republican Party as an agent of limited gov’t as he has to destroy the country’s future. His profligate spending–esp. the Medicare expansion–will prove devastating when the boomers retire in droves.