If the "Republicans" are going to continue on, they must figure out what defines them. A "Neocon" is not a Republican, but a bastardization of a small government, productive American who WAS a Republican at one time in the past.. Similarly, a Socialist or Marxist is a bastardization of an American Democrat, a person who wanted more government. If the Republicans are to go any further and not evaporate as a party, they must decide how tightly they wish to cling to their "party line". RON PAUL, for example, has been very successful in his re-elections as a Congressman from Texas running AS A REPUBLICAN, because he shoots straight, tells it like it is, and intelligent people usually respond well to being respected. If he hadn't been censored and boxed out of the limelight (by our Obama-worshipping press) during his presidential campaign, he would have claimed a large portion of the young vote, the "minority" vote, the women's vote, disgusted apathetic voters, AND the confused Republicans adhering to a Neocon McCain ticket because they didn't dare back Obama's MEGA-government campaign. So, to say that Republicans are too old and too white is erroneous. I personally converted many Liberal and Neocon friends and associates simply by educating them to Ron Paul's message. Libertarianism is the old Republicanism, but the (R), (L) or (D) doesn't mean SQUAT now. It's only the "truth" and reality of corrupt governments that matters. The party of ( C ) is in our face (corruption) today, and unless we end this child's game of (R) vs (D), we will ALL get (S). You can plug in your own word...there are several which fit. By the way, the Obama sticker on the baby's blanket (at the top of this story) immediately reminded me of a sticker on a product in the store. The only thing missing is a bar code. If we continue to ignore pandemic corruption in government, we will someday soon be reminded that WE ..ALL of us...are the world's most prized commodity. The sticker just reminded me of this. Come on Salon, get with the program to end corruption, and STOP with all this venom targeting (R)'s, making the animosity greater than it was. You're throwing logs on an already huge fire, wasting our time in reading this crap, and you truly aren't helping anyone's children to have a better future.

It's about what the GOP has done to the country since 1980.

---

The success of the GOP for all those years has been based on two things:

1) Getting enough people so fired up about one or two issues that they ignore the big picture and vote AGAINST their own best interests.

For example, "family values" is a constant theme of the GOP. But whose family and whose values? Under GOP "tax simplification", we've seen a lot of middle-class tax deductions disappear or be greatly reduced, the marriage penalty got worse, and support for things like health care, child care and education reduced.

If the GOP is so in favor of marriage and families, why is the tax code set up so that a married couple who both work pay MORE tax than if they weren't married but lived together? The Carter Administration enacted tax rules to reduce that penalty - and Reagan removed it.

2) Getting enough people focused on the short-term that they ignore the long-term effects of what is actually happening.

For example, the Reagan Administration did all kinds of deals to make oil cheap and plentiful in the 1980s. This made lots of Americans happy and sold lots of SUVs, but it also pumped billions of dollars to folks who didn't like America very much, like Saddam H. It also removed economic incentives for the USA to be more energy-efficient and energy-independent.

Short-term, it worked great. Long-term, it was a disaster.

The list goes on and on. Shrub was the worst but he wasn't the first.

I know that the Bushies did not say they broke the law. Their position was that they were above the law, they could do what they wanted. Do you think a President does not have to follow laws? Do you think that he can do whatever he wants for "security reasons"? Is the Excecutive Branch above the law? Or do you believe that all Americans should obey the laws as enacted, and if they don't like the laws as they are, should do what they can to change those laws (as the Bushies did once the Congress was mostly Democratic and they didn't have a complete rubber-stamp. Close enough, though.)

Why are there no prosecutions? Good question. Chicken-shit prosecutors who don't want to take on the powerful, I suppose. Wimpy politicians who are scared that they'll be implicated. It's shameful that there are no prosecutions. It embarasses me, as an American, that laws were plainly broken by the high-and-mighty and those who put such things in motion are being protected. Should criminals be protected because they are among the powerful? Or should they be prosecuted all the harder, especially when they had additionally sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws? They had the public trust and they broke it. Is it better or worse when those we expect to protect us abuse the system? Do they deserve a pass because they are "important people"?

Is a party actually for law-and-order when it fails to prosecute its own criminals? (Or is it natural for those who want a police state to not want their own prosecuted?) Is another party correct to avoid such prosecutions in order to smooth the waters? IMO, no on both counts. Criminals at the highest levels deserve to go down hard. They are more culpable than those at the bottom who followed their marching orders. See Glenn Greenwald's column about the proposed prosecutions of the little guys regarding torture.

---

As to my proposal that you pick an honest conservative party somewhere, rather than the nest of thieves and hypocrites... I appreciate your succumbing to "big tent" strategies, and I appreciate that the Democratic party might not be a fit for you. I know that right now it's two parties. I am proposing that this can change, if enough people get disgusted, if enough people find that their interests are not getting acted upon. If, for instance, the Libertarians picked up a quarter or a third of the voting bloc nationwide, they could be a force. They would be a force. The current system is not set in stone. Time for a change. Those big parties are too smug.