Uh-Oh... looks like it's Neo-Con Casserole time at the Conservative Buffet

[Totally Committed]

... as we sit back and watch them as they begin to eat their own:

We're All in the Same Bloat
Republicans have abandoned small government. Why shouldn't voters abandon them?

BY BRENDAN MINITER
Tuesday, September 20, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

"After 11 years of Republican majority, we pared it down pretty good. I am ready to declare ongoing victory. It is still a process." --House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on the federal budget

In the presidential campaign last year, Democrats were said to be counting on some misfortune--terrorists attacking on American soil, the Iraq War taking a turn for the worse, the economy going south--to help them beat George W. Bush. That didn't happen, of course. But now disaster has struck, and it's becoming increasingly clear that Democrats are better off for it. In ripping through the Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina has peeled back the lid on Republican rule and many Americans aren't happy with what they see.

>snip

What President Bush, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and other Republicans haven't figured out yet is that deficit spending isn't a problem for them unless it endangers the broader conservative agenda. If it does, it will become the electoral issue. And what we're seeing is that Katrina is swamping every goal conservatives have, from limiting government to cutting taxes to reforming entitlement programs. Katrina spending has already imperiled plans to repeal the death tax, and Congress is already $60 billion into a spending binge. Handing out $2,000 debit cards was just the beginning. The conservative Congress has brought back the welfare state.

This isn't all Katrina's fault. Republicans have been kidding themselves for years that they are still the stewards of fiscal conservatism and limited government. The Medicare prescription drug plan is just one example. Run down the list of the some 80 federal entitlements--including Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, Pell Grants and so much more--and it becomes clear that little has been done to take these massive programs off of spending autopilot. Welfare reform and Freedom to Farm in the 1990s were nice, but what has the GOP done lately? In many cases Republicans have ramped up spending and then bragged about it.

What we're seeing in the wake of Katrina is that despite all the winks and assurances to the contrary as they passed the energy and transportation bills, Republicans in Congress don't know how to control spending and are at a loss as to why they even should. That's one way to govern. But if Republicans no longer believe in smaller government, why not put the Democrats back in charge?

Entire Editorial:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bminiter/?id=110007283

Heh, heh, heh... Waiter, I'll that the Spaghetti with Shadenfreude Sauce, thank you. The floor-show should be great!

TC

[welshTerrier2]

1. neo-con casserole ...

my compliments to the Chef !!! you know, i read the title in the thread index and i thought "that's great ... who wrote that one" ...

i don't agree with very much the article's author had to say but you've highlighted the essential point: "all roads lead to ruin" ... republicans are stuck battling each other "with no direction home" ... they have run out of fake solutions ...

smaller government was DOA in New Orleans while at the same time the republicans' devastating deficits comfort no one ... the problem with neo-cons and the whole right-wing agenda is that they "advertise and sell" smaller government but what they really believe in and what they've really brought about is ineffective government ... size doesn't matter; quality does ...

[Totally Committed]

2. You HAVE to know I don't agree with the author, either...

But, just seeing him smack the Bushies down is so good.

Let them destroy each other. 2006 is coming on!

TC

[welshTerrier2]

3. have faith ...

i understand ...

still, Democrats have miles to go if they want to make Dean's "you can't trust republicans with your money" start getting through ... it's the same problem Democrats have with other issues ...

voters are fed up with failed republican policies but Democrats have little or no credibility either ... some of it's the MSM ... some of it's the Party's "big government" past ... but some of it's that the Party lacks focus and unity with its message ...

it's not that various Democrats, like loose cannons, haven't articulated positions ... it just seems like they're not all on the same page ... until the Party finds unity in their talking points, their ad hoc style and lack of message discipline will continue to render them invisible ...

and don't even get me started on Iraq ... if Democrats don't get behind the calls for immediate withdrawal from the rapidly growing majority of the American people, they may pick up a few "dropped republican crumbs" next year but they will not be seen as a Party with vision ... they will not instill themselves once again as the majority party ...

time is running out on the Democrats on Iraq ... i know you believe strongly in Wes Clark; both he and Kerry have to say "enough !!!" to Iraq ... there is no room left for speeches that talk about "how we can succeed" ... the time for theories, however sound, has passed ... all that's left is failure and the wise will see that it's "time to fold 'em" ... i ask all Clark supporters to ask Wes for a re-think ...

as Bob Dylan wrote in "Love Minus Zero":

She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

[yellowcanine]

4. yeah me neither - particularly his use of the repug term "death tax"

for what everyone knows is the estate tax. It is the estate that is taxed, not the person who died. Dumb shits. But yes, it is good to see the Repug shark circling around the Bush blood in the water.