How the GOP Lost Its Way (Washington Post)

[kentuck]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101593.html?sub=AR

<snip>

The Republican Party is now unraveling. Sept. 11, 2001, and the war on terrorism stanched a lot of wounds inside the party, but resentment is growing over steel tariffs, prescription drug benefits, a League of Nations mentality, the growth of government and harebrained spending, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, the increasing regulation of political speech in the United States and endemic corruption. On top of all the scandals, it has just come to light that the RNC paid millions in legal bills to defend operative James Tobin, who was convicted with associates in an illegal phone-jamming scheme aimed at preventing New Hampshire Democrats from voting. In doing so, the GOP appears to sanction and institutionalize corruption within the party.

The elites in the GOP have never understood conservatives or Reagan; they've found both to be a bit tacky. They have always found the populists' commitment to values unsettling. To them, adherence to conservative principles was always less important than wealth and power.

Unfortunately, the GOP has lost its motivating ideals. The revolution of 1994 has been killed not by zeal but by a loss of faith in its own principles. The tragedy is not that we are faced with another fight for the soul of the Republican Party but that we have missed an opportunity to bring a new generation of Americans over to our point of view.

<snip>
It was the populists under Reagan, and later under Newt Gingrich, who energized the party, gave voice to a maturing conservative ideology and swept Republicans into power. We would be imprudent and forgetful to disregard this. But it may be too late, because conservatives don't want to be part of the looming train wreck. They know that this is no longer Ronald Reagan's party.

[Old and In the Way]

1. The vision of unlimited bribery and self profiting can only take you

so far. They were could at tax cuts, not so good at public service.

[Lexingtonian]

2. The author is a Reaganite fruitcake

who can't accept that this 'conservatism' stuff was a con and merely a laziness, but he's right that his Party is over and done for.

[seafan]

5. He just HAD to get in a delusional dig at Democrats at the end:

Craig Shirley writes:

All agree that the Democrats are feckless and without a plan or agenda. But most Americans are now presented with a choice between two parties that are both addicted to power -- the Democrats to government power and Republicans to corporate and governmental power. Who speaks for Main Street Reaganism?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/21/AR2006042101593.html?sub=AR



Watching these guys clutching madly to their delusions as they crash and burn is quite a sight.

[Hissyspit]

7. Here's the Democrats plan: NOT LYING, NOT TORTURING, NOT

BEING HYPOCRITICAL, NOT BEING GREEDY AND CORRUPT.

Sounds like a plan to me.

[babylonsister]

3. "Loss of faith" over, under, and around. That's it. The repub party

has none, just like the rest of us.

[Zorra]

4. Ideology Shmeideology. They all suck, no matter what they talk

about.

It's what they do that counts, and they never do anything good for the people or the country.

Actually, they consistently trash the people and the country.

The phrase "GOP populist" is a contradiction in terms. There ain't no such animal.

[demdiva]

6. I have always had faith that the Republicans would unravel

It's true...the Republicans know how to manipulate the public and to gain power...obviously. However, recent history tells us that the Republicans don't know how to hang on to it. They always give away the power by wanting it too much. Nixon, Gingrich, now Bush (Bush Bush Bush and Bush). All the troubles Bush has had in the past year are really an abuse of power in the end.

I'd like to think the Democratic Party helped them along. But, really, they did do it to themselves.

[NVMojo]

8. It's time to end the Repuke war on America!!!

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. Could this possibly encourage them to attack Iran? I hope not!

I certainly hope not . I desperately hope not.

If they already want military action against Iran anyway; or perhaps somewhere else for that matter. But other factors make them think twice. But they realize that a properly timed military strike "could" (that is might) save their skin during the upcoming midterm elections--is it not wholly plausible that this could contribute to a decision to go ahead and strike?

The lapdog media will do its duty. They realize that much of the American public will in spite of misgiving feel its their patriotic duty to "support the troops". They realize that most but not all key Democrats will support the move at least initially--either because they agree with it or because they are afraid of being labeled "week on defense", "soft on terrorism", or being part of the "blame America first crowd".

I certainly hope I am wrong. but I would not put it past these people.
And as I always say NEVER, NEVER, NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE WAR PROPAGANDA MACHINE..

Here is just one example. Now forget what you know about the reality of the situation. Forget what facts you know. Imagine you are just Jane Doe or John Q. Public living in Anytown, USA:



http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/04/18.html#a7955

Fishing for a Pretext in Iran

by Juan Cole; March 18, 2006

link: http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=99...

snip:"Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms and committed Iran to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state. (Note: Grand Ayatollah Khamenei is the Chief of State and He ALONE has the final say in matters of the Iranian state and the final religious authority over the vast overwhelming majority of Iranian Shiites.)

snip:"Tehran denies having military labs aiming for a bomb, and in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program."

snip:"it is often alleged that since Iran harbors the desire to “destroy” Israel, it must not be allowed to have the bomb. Ahmadinejad has gone blue in the face denouncing the immorality of any mass extermination of innocent civilians, but has been unable to get a hearing in the English-language press. Moreover, the presidency is a very weak post in Iran, and the president is not commander of the armed forces and has no control over nuclear policy"

snip: "in November of 2003 the IAEA formally announced that it could find no proof of such a weapons program. The U.S. reaction was a blustery incredulity, which is not actually an argument or proof in its own right, however good U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is at bunching his eyebrows and glaring."
snip:"Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei has given a fatwa or formal religious ruling against nuclear weapons, and President Ahmadinejad at his inauguration denounced such arms."



http://www.dontattackiran.org

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Shirley is, of course, wrong

His major fib is portraying the "business" wing as "country club elites." Far from it. The business wing is the movement of global capital itself. It is the "progressive" wing of the Republican Party, if "progressive" can be taken to mean "embracing change." The conservative or "populist" wing remains utterly reactionary, and after-effect of the movement of globalization. As always, globalization comes first: all the religious fanaticisms and fundamentalisms that have cropped up in the last 40 years are after-effects, desperate attempts to regain foundation and stability as the world moves toward mobile economies. And of course it comes to a head with the so-called "illegal immigration." Global capitalism doesn't care about borders. The nostalgic song of the nation state is fading, but the sans papiers issues in Europe and the "illegal immigration" issues in the US may serve as its last bloody aria...