perfidy

Poppycock! The GOP is more than one ideology. Bush is the best, most representative republican. Indeed, can you name anyone else who could bring the neo-con, libertarian and religious strains together--who could put Cheney, Ashcroft and Snow in the same room?

Not so much, NDR. The Woodrow Wilson analogy puts a finger on what I've been thinking for a while. Yes, the Republican party is more than one ideology - but, people will move to the center of power to try to influence policy regardless of whether the person at the very center is a "good" Republican or not.

Or, they just want a good parking spot.

I personally don't think that he is a good republican, and a lot of people are disenchanted. The big government conservative is a retarded concept from the get go- if you're going to spend money like him, you might as well be a squishy liberal and get credit for it. If there are two (not terribly distant) poles to American politics, then each has a purpose:

One is to cut taxes, reign in government excess, and beat up on brown people who piss us off.

The other is to comfort the poor, the ill, and the lazy through the community checkbook, and reassure brown people who piss us off that we aren't going to smite them.

Switching back and forth has seemed to work pretty well, all told. But some of the worst examples of presidential leadership in the last century are precisely those presidents who, being from one party, try to do something more suited to the other. Prime examples being Wilson, LBJ and Bush.

Hmmm . . . like him or not, I think Greenwald's observations here are relevant, at least as regards the people who claim to represent and speak for the GOP before the American public. Bush was considered a good Republican and a good conservative up until around the moment his approval ratings slipped below 35%.

John Kerry brought all those strains together in 2004. Hillary Clinton might do it again on 2008.

George Walker Bush has done everything in his power to smash the Republican coalition to pieces since 2004 - and he's been pretty successful. He has had a tremendous amount of help from Republicans in Congress in his efforts to destroy the party.

Taxes - in six years of Republican government, no meani8ngful tax reform was seriously considered. Instead they passed a TEMPORARY tax cut. Failure.

Spending - Out.Of.Control.

Defense - Almost 6 years after 911 and 4 in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Army hasn't changed size in a meaningful way. The 8 divisions cut in the 90's are still gone. To make up for the lack of manpower, we send people on 15-month deployments. Why I got out of the National Guard.

Immigration - Failed to enforce the current laws, failed to pass better laws, supporting an incredibly unpopular mess of a non-solution. Utter Failure.

The differences between Clinton and Bush are legion (and don't each fall in favor of one or the other), but to illustrate the thing that most disenchants his former supporters, I'd ask the question:

What big thing did (Bill) Clinton do which, upon reflection, was so ineptly executed as to have been laughable?

Answer the same question about GWB, and compare the two lists, and GWB comes off looking quite like a retard, of some stripe or another.

Contrary to stereotype, religion has next to nothing to do either with his motivations or his failings. They're far more deeply rooted in poor strategy, poor communication, and poor execution. I guess I'm saying that anyone who uses "Christian" in a condemnation of GWB is needlessly wasting an arrow from his quiver.

Before one even gets to the imagined religious component of his ineptitude, the argument's already been won.

Bill Clinton's (non) pursuit of terrorists was unforgivably inept. The tempo and scale of attacks was escalating during his administration and he did nothing to stop it. I can't bring myself to laugh about it.

Combine that with the gutting of our ground forces during his administration and we get today’s mess that Bush can’t manage.

Thank goodness that neither Bush nor Clinton can hold a candle to the utter failure of the (thankfully only) four years of Jimmy Carter.

At least, not that I can think of right away...

Bram: I hear you, and am sympathetic to the argument.

However, I'll see your quite-adept "unforgivably inept" example, and raise you, in no particular order:

1. Pretending to think SCOTUS would overturn McCain Feingold
2. Medicare "reform", which Ted K claimed was "a good down-payment"
3. Immigration "reform"
4. Repeated playing (& losing) of "good ole boy" "politics", as opponents laugh up their sleeves and Congress (overall) passes anything they like, safe in the assumption it won't likely be vetoed.
5. All speeches and other alleged attempts at communication on Iraq/Afghanistan/GWOT since 2003

...plus, I'm sure, at least three other similar failures of wit, will, or worth that will occur to me after I've hit the Submit button.

Patton - regarding the religion component, I guess it comes down to how much you believe Kevin Phillips' argument that much of Bush's politics and worldview is filtered through the lens of his post-AA conversion. I buy Phillips' argument that the bonds he formed then with some religious leaders, and the notion he inherited from them that his mission is a righteous one meant to transform the world, is a big part of Bush's foreign policy. ANd that's been disastrous.

I DO NOT mean to malign American Christianity in general or specific - just Bush's characteristally cack-handed and intellectually lazy application of privately revealed faiths to issues of global concern.

J:

I should have been more clear earlier - I think that Christianity, like most things in life, is subject to being maligned occasionally. Also like most things in life, just because someone maligns it doesn't make it worthy of the abuse. That said, I don't care particularly when someone maligns it, I didn't think you or Phillips was doing so, and that wasn't my point.

My point, poorly made, was that too often people equate Bush's actions with his claim to be a born-again Christian, and that he's been unduly influenced by that facet of his life. I think that Christianity is most evident in his life via the Rove connection to fundies, and that Bush's failures are so incidental to his religion that people are mistaken to conflate the two.

What's the effect of that conflation? Also too often, people defend him because they see attacks on him as being attacks on Christianity. That's a shitty reason to defend some of his less-defensible failings, and misses the point entirely.

Myself, I don't see a single thing he's done in 6 1/2 years that appears to have been based on religion. Increasingly, I also see little that he's done that appears to be based on being a conservative or a Republican.

Phil--Greenwald is confusing cause and effect. El Jefe d'Oro's ratings declined, and finally tanked, when the evidence that he is no true conservative, but instead just another entitled establishment Tory drone, cast too long a shadow to ignore.

"I guess it comes down to how much you believe Kevin Phillips’ argument that much of Bush’s politics and worldview is filtered through the lens of his post-AA conversion."

I don't. Much of his foreign policy decision-making is driven by the neo-cons--Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. Any overlap with the FP goals of religious conservatives is fortuitous

Patton - No arguements there - I gave up defending Bush years ago. I voted for him becuase the alternative was so much worse.

Now I'm just waiting out this term hoping that he cannot do too much more damage. Maybe a stable adult will take over and fix a few things.

Bram : I love your optimism.

People here bitch about John Howard a lot, but I think we could have done much worse. A lot of people feel the same way about him as they do about George W. Bush. Some of their complaints have some validity. But, thank god we'd not going through the medicare/social security/illegal immigration nightmare you are. Illegal immigration is just an accident of your location, but those other things required serious mismanagement to get where they are today, and unfortunately Bush ain't going to be the one to fix them...

Sometimes I wish that Bush was what people made him out to be - an evil genius - that might actually be better than the limp fish that he is.

From an outsider's viewpoint, Howard's done quite a solid job, and will on present trajectory leave the country better than he found it.

Bush? Not so much. He showed promise at one time, and like Bram, I voted for him this last time solely because he was the lesser of the two nincompoops. When he lost the willingness, or thought he no longer needed, to speak with the people about what he was doing, and why, he lost me.

There is a crucial part of political leadership that's often forgotten - regular, frank communication with the electorate. It's not OK to be president and pursue what you think are a bunch of great ideas, but not communicate them. The alternative, taken by Bush, is to appear to disdain the ideas of anyone but his coterie of shit-wits.

When it stops, the leader (or the "Decider™", in Bush's case) loses touch, hears only the feedback of his advisors, loses accountability, makes idiotic decisions, and then withdraws into a shell, as that's the last refuge available.

Self-inflicted lame duck syndrome, if you ask me. He will be utterly fucking useless from now until Jan 2009 unless he changes style pretty radically. That would have to include, at this point, an abject & sincere apology for his arrogance/ignorance. (Yes, that last bit is a mildly obscure movie reference)

Patton,
If he would just sit down one-on-one with an interviewer, and explain things better.

Like why he drinks only rain water, or pure grain alcohol. Or his need to protect the purity of our precious bodily fluids.

Then we could all say, "OOOOOHHHHHhhhhh...*that's* his deal...he's fucking insane". That would explain alot, and be very helpful.

See? I knew you'd understand instantly, G.

We don't want any particular answer, we just want to know what we're dealing with.

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