Why Conservatives Can't Govern (from TomPaine.com)

[marmar]

Why Conservatives Can't Govern
Robert L. Borosage
March 19, 2007



Robert L. Borosage is co-director of the Campaign For America's Future.

Donald Rumsfeld has been axed. Tom DeLay cut and ran. “Scooter” Libby stands convicted. Michael “you’re doing a heck of a job” Brown was tossed. Newt Gingrich disgraced himself. And now the clueless Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, is surely the next to go.

Why this confederacy of dunces? The conservative National Review cover asks plaintively, “Can’t Anyone Here Play this Game?” Time Magazine puts conservative icon Ronald Reagan on its cover, a tear rolling down his face, reporting on “How the Right Went Wrong.” But it’s not incompetence or corruption—although both abound—that fostered the misrule of this conservative administration. And Reagan would feel not dismayed, but right at home with the follies and crimes. Remember: Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese, was disgraced. His national security advisor copped a plea. Oliver North stood convicted. His defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, would have been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice if George Bush the first hadn’t issued a preemptive pardon.

What is it about conservative administrations that lead them into disgrace and indictment? Incompetence isn’t at the core of these scandals—ideology is.

Conservative presidents—from Nixon to Reagan to Bush—believe in the imperial presidency. They assume that in the area of the national security, the president operates above the law, or as Nixon put it, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” They operate routinely behind the shield of secrecy and executive privilege, with utter disdain for the law. So Reagan spurned the Congress when it cut off funds for his loony covert war on tiny Nicaragua. And Bush trampled the laws to set up the torture camps in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and elsewhere. Each would seek to keep their lawlessness secret; and that would foster lies, obstruction of justice and ultimately disgrace. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/19/why_conservatives_cant_govern.php

[Phredicles]

1. Yeah, when it comes to heedless, reckless incompetence, St. Ronnie

is indeed the patron saint, not the counterpoint.

[BOSSHOG]

3. ray-gun did wear a coat and tie

in the oval office when he ordered the murder of Priests and Nuns and children.

[BOSSHOG]

2. And they are proud of it.

Conseratives say government does not work, then they get elected and prove it.

[A Simple Game]

8. Nice saying, is it yours?

"Conservatives say government does not work, then they get elected and prove it."

I may have to borrow that saying if you don't mind.

[BOSSHOG]

12. Its all yours my friend

I'm not sure of its origination but I read it somewhere a few years back. Al Franken possibly!

[williesgirl]

4. Off to the greatest page with ye

[Labors of Hercules]

5. What baffles me is,

Why has the body politic not learned to stop this shit before it starts?? Why do they keep voting for an abusive group of people who will trample on their rights as well as ours? Why?

I wonder if it's the same reason abused spouses stay faithful to the asshole that treats them like shit... Has anyone done a study to compare the two? :shrug:

[Greeby]

6. The answer is just four words

They don't want to

[cassiepriam]

7. Reagan would be thrilled by what is happening.

Secret govt, theft of the US treasury to cronies.
Dismantling of the US govt.

[Morgana LaFey]

9. Okay. Ideology PLUS

sociopathy.

[eridani]

10. Expecting conservatives to govern well--

--is like expecting vegetarians to cook up a really good beef stew.

[ComerPerro]

11. biggest thing is their whole "anti-big-government" philosophy.

Yet, there they are, at the top of a large government, at the head of it.