Letters to the Editor
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not so fast sidney
Yes, it looks as though the GOP might finally have destroyed itself, but just look at the past history that Blumenthal recounts. They keep screwing up on a monumental scale. From the corruption of tea-pot dome to the incompetent laizes-fare policies that lead to the depression, to the sinister undermining of our democracy suring watergate, to the huge debts of the Reagan administration, again to the sinister corruption of Iran-Contra, they keep coming back to life. The GOP is like a vampire or a zombie that jsut won't die. Even after the photos of Abu Graib and the open knowledge that the rationale for the Iraq invasion was a sham, Bush got reelectd. You cannot chalk it up to democratic incompetence. Their is something wrong with our system, with our culture, with our people. Not quite sure what it is exactly, but whatever it is, it's still there. The fact that polls show McCain even or ahead of Clinton or Obama, after the demonstratable disaster of Bush, proves it.
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Deja vu
Before the 2004 general election, I often read your predictions of victory for the Democrats, and of the GOP's impending implosion, and was comforted, in these very echo chambers.
Of course, then the election happened....
I think I've grown wiser since then, Mr. Blumenthal - I'm sure your analysis is very good, but this is too complex a system with too many variables, to fit neatly into one set of predictions. To loosely paraphrase John Kerry, wishing or saying it will happen, won't make it so.
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Very Good
Funny, 35 years ago I never felt such contempt for the Republican party as I do today. Even while Nixon was being impeached, I figured it was just Nixon. I suppose that's because there were still enough "sensible" or moderate Republicans in leadership that I didn't notice that the neo-con's were body-snatching.
George W. McCain has made an unholy alliance with himself and the neo-cons. He will serve as their new mouth piece and they will hold their noses and give him a few kibbles each year to call "his own." Besides, they will rationalize, it will help to keep the masses subdued while they plot their next Iran-Contra, Iraq invasion, or other hellish act that ends up destroying the United States.
The Republican Party is defunct. It's not a political organization, it's a cult disguised as a political party. It is infested with neo-cons who don't care whether or not oil is $100.00 a gallon as long as they can rule the world and get richer.
As for the current Democratic Party, it fits that they cannot figure out whether to shit or fall back right now either. You would think they would have figured out where they went wrong decades ago too, but nooooooo...
The gave the word liberal such a bad name - and let Republicans demonize them for so long - that they had to find a new word to describe themselves, "progressives." Hi-jacked for years by left-of-left elitists who seem undisturbed by the prospect of yet another defeat as long as they get to rub something in the face of their right-wing peers, they were pushed aside by the Presidential campaign of 1992, with New Democratic Leadership candidate Bill Clinton. Now, with a brand new mouth piece, Barack Obama, they think nothing of making the Democratic Party their enemy to get their nominee on the debate stage against McCain, regardless of whether or not he can win.
The left-wing of the Democratic Party through Barack Obama has not so much brought "new voters" into the party as they have sought to circumvent and dilute the existing membership base that clearly does not support their guy.
I'm not sure I want to trust my country to the judgment of a bunch of 20 years olds who rant against the very "old people" in the Party who are paying their college bills - or left-wing elitists who have nothing but contempt for working men and women who are not college educated and "not like us." Make no mistake, the Obamas, for all their real life backgrounds and upbringing, left that average, common life behind a million years ago! They don't identify anymore.
Let's face it: They all make millions, don't they? They all live lives the majority of the rest of us don't live and never will live. So what's the difference then?
McCain is a vast right-wing conspiracy waiting to continue it's march toward a date with facism.
Obama is a vast left-wing conspiracy that's been put out to pasture and now sees a shot at gaining access to government again only to create more ill-advised programs that do absolutely nothing to move our country forward either.
And Clinton doesn't seem to have a left or right wing conspiracy - just a "hey-why-not-I-want-to-be-President-ambition" conspiracy.
I'm voting for her - she's the one most likely to succeed.
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Don't worry, the Dems will cut the Repubs all the slack they need
"GOP on the verge of imploding"... Fear not, the Democrats will do whatever is necessary to insure that the GOP remains competitive. First, because much of the Democratic party agrees with some to all of the neoconservative agenda (if occasionally to a less radical degree); Greenwald has covered this aspect well. And second, because they've found that they can win and keep their careers (and keep their friends, the lobbyists and corporate donors, happy) simply by being a less heinous alternative to full-strength neoconservatism (which remains the country's dominant political agenda, for lack of anything else).
If the GOP actually imploded, it would put much more pressure on Democrats to start standing for something and then doing something. They aren't up to it, and they know it.
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Republicans Espouse One Set Of Values Standards And Practice The Opposite
Full Disclosure: After 35 years of voting almost straight Democratic, the cumulative effects of the Clintons plus Pelosi's "off the table" remark sent me over to register as a Republican to support the most consistently anti-neocon in Congress, Ron Paul.
That said, any examination of the Republican Party's claim to conservative ideology and the actual performance of elected Republican politicians over the last 3 decades reveals enormous inconsistencies, which we could call paradoxes if we were to be polite or just plain hypocrisy if we are not.
The party that has made more noise than any in history about balancing the budget and exercising fiscal responsibility has tripled the national debt.
The party that has made more noise about ending illegal immigration has facilitated the arrival of record numbers of illegal immigrants, with only token efforts to restrict the flow.
The party that made a big production about not getting involved in nation-building will be known to history as the one that conducted the biggest nation-building fiasco in history.
The party that made claim to the concept of a small federal government with limited powers is now headed by a "Decider" whose administration has expanded the size and powers of federal officers beyond what anyone previously would have imagined possible.
The party that made honor, duty, and public service its watchwords had consistently practiced deceit, corruption, and betrayal for the benefit of already wealthy "clients".
The list of transgressions could doubtless be continued ad nauseum by most readers of Salon.
The most remarkable thing about this whole episode is the huge number of "staunch Republicans" who have been snookered into supporting people who acted exactly contrary to the ideological values they supposedly embrace and continue to be taken, hook, line, and sinker, by the puppet-masters that control the Party.