Frontpaged at Political Cortex.
Via BooMan and our own Georgia10, I see Bill Kristol is attempting to separate the failure of George W. Bush from conservative ideology.
BILL KRISTOL: I think it’s become in people’s minds an emblem of the administration that just isn’t as serious about the competent execution of the functions of government as it should be. And even — I’m struck talking to conservatives and Republicans — they agree with the president on basic political philosophy, the they agree with his basic policy agenda, but they are worried that they just don’t seem to be able to execute as well as they should be.
Kristol’s just the latest in a line of conservatives to claim that Republican policies didn’t fail Bush; Bush failed the Republican policies.
They cannot separate Bush from their movement, however. They can’t escape the monster they created.
Kristol is like the conspirator in a murder case: “Sure I drove Bush to the house, gave him the gun, advised him what to do, but I’m not responsible for the crime.”
The same is true of every Republican, conservative and neo-conservative that ever supported Bush.
They’ve got blood on their hands, and no amount of trying to wash the taint of Bush away is going to cleanse them of their shared guilt.
Bush gave them what they wanted and if they don’t like it, they should renounce their party and their ideology and seek forgiveness and to undo the damage they have done to their country and the world.
They wanted less regulation of industry and America got dead miners.
CRAIGSVILLE, W.Va. — In its drive to foster a more cooperative relationship with mining companies, the Bush administration has decreased major fines for safety violations since 2001, and in nearly half the cases, it has not collected the fines, according to a data analysis by The New York Times.
Federal records also show that in the last two years the federal mine safety agency has failed to hand over any delinquent cases to the Treasury Department for further collection efforts, as is supposed to occur after 180 days.
As John at AmericaBlog said:
This is Republicanism in action, folks. There’s no way to sugar coat it. You vote Republican, this is what you get – people who favor corporations over people. Republicans alway say they’re going to cut back on federal regulations, so no one should be surprised when they do.
snip
You vote for it, you own it. It’s time the American voter takes responsibility for his and her own vote. You elected these guys, and they’re doing what they told you they’d do. If you don’t like it, then stop voting Republican.
Bush didn’t fail the Republican policies. The Republican policies failed the American people.
Kristol and the Republicans should be handcuffed to George W. Bush to keep them from escaping what he has wrought.
Grover Norquist wanted tax cuts. Americans got the highest deficit in history.
Norquist wanted to drown the federal government in a bathtub. We lost an American city to flooding. And as people grew hungry and desperate, John McCain laughed and gave Bush cake.
The Republicans wanted less environmental regulations. We got melting polar icepacks and record-levels of children with asthma.
The Republicans wanted war in Iraq. Americans got dead soldiers, dead Iraqis, a broken military, an escaped Osama bin-Laden, high gasoline prices, lost national prestige and a rise in terrorism and anti-American hatred in return.
And the efforts by Kristol, Norquist and others to make Bush their Jonah should not be allowed to succeed.
Bush should be the stake we use to drive through the heart of their conservative ideology.
And once we drive the stake in, we need to chop off the monster’s head, stuff the mouth with garlic cloves, burn the body, grind the bones to dust and bury them deep in consecrated ground to keep this horror from ever rising again.
very well put! That is exactly what we need to do…Thanks for a great diary. I recommend
thanks. I just wish I could fix the poll.
that is ok. I think we all know what the answer wold be anyhow….:o) hugs
There aren’t any choices to select in the poll, only the vote button.
Doesn’t it need a “yes” vote or a “no” vote choice, or have youtried to set these choices up and it wouldn’t work?
Reading your words and how you use them… make me so “happy” 🙂
To add to your wonderful diary… They voted him in… let them sleep in their filth.
Yes, we don’t need to throw Republicans an anvil, Bush already provides ballast sufficient to sink them. (Allright, enough water images already.)
“Norquist wanted to drown the federal government in a bathtub. We lost an American city to flooding. “
Change Norquist to republicans and I think you have a devastating campaign meme.
Kristol is a Neoconservative psychopath first and foremost, and to the extent he embraces so-called Republican policies, he says this as cover because, when all is said and done, he only supports “Republicanism” when its specific actions and policies advance “Neoconservatism”, (i.e. “militarily aggresive authoritarianism”).
Kristol will be attacking regular Republican sentiments and ideologies pretty soon too, in addition to ramping up his rhetorical assault on competency in the Bush regime. The only Repubs Kristol has any even marginal consideration for are those who’ve joined the extremist cabal that have hijacked the government and effectively seized control of the mainstream, formerly-at-least-somewhat-rational Republican Party.
Kristol and his fellow neocons don’t really give a shit about anyone who doesn’t agree with and support the neocon agenda in it’s entirety. I expect he’ll even be bashing Norquist before long.
Kristol’s main job now is to prevent the public from understanding that the Neocon ideology is the proximate cause of virtually all our major disasters in the international arena. He needs to keep the illusion of neoconservative ideology as a positive and rational philosophy as a viable myth that he and his lunatic pals can use again when they get their hands on the levers of power again at some future date.
Kristol knows the neocons have reached the end of their tenure at the center of government. He’ll be blaming everyone else for all the problems, calling for the heads of Rumsfeld, Hadley and various others; by extension Bush was always the main fall guy anyway, so the entire regime is going to be tarred by the neocons in a desperate yet carefully orchestrated attempt to secure legitimacy for the neocon ideology going forward. Regular Repubs who are actual “true conservatives”, (as opposed to the extremists loonies running the show right now), will certainly come under increasing attack by the neocons as time goes by.
I think we on the left would do well to maintain the distinction between the Neocons, the Nrquist treasury looters, and the regular Repubs who, despite being Repubs with a generally stingy philosophy, are still rational and still have the best interests of the country at heart somewhere in their psyches. We need these rational Repubs to become stronger; we need them to come to understand that they will benefit much more in the long run by allying themselves with us to drive the wingnut extremists out before they destroy the country permanently.
What sbj wrote: we shouldn’t be tarring 51% of the voting public with the same brush. “Republicans” I think believed the administration’s rhetoric in ’04, and realized too late they’d been lied to. Labor (Mine safety), the environment, size of government, and the entire Cabinet list of wrongs are generally invisible to the public. All hidden under the broad umbrella of double-speak on “government regulation”, “privatize”, and most importantly “security”.
If you want to attack the criminals, I’d suggest putting up an actual rogue’s gallery. Pictures of them w/Da Prez, and with their own words as indictments. Kristol and Norquist especially could be dispatched with a single paragraph.
But it’s not all Republican error. They had help from a few Democrats.
To my way of thinking, if we are to “get our country back”, so to speak, one of the most difficult tasks ahead will be that of getting huge numbers of those voters who supported the Bush regime from the outset to understand that there’s no shame in having been duped by the Bush gang; that the strategy of deception used against them was quite sophisticated in the beginning and many people who wanted to believe the best about these Bush folks had their best intentions ruthlessly exploited by these extremist criminals that are at the core of the entire Bush presidency. If these folks then can see it’s OK to be former Bush supporters, rather than remaining stuck in the sort of stubborn denial that is all too common amongst people who defend their bad decisions because they’re simply too embarrassed to admit having been fooled.
We need these people if we’re going to have any chance at all of truly turning things around and restoring functional sanity in government.
(And of course, as you say rba, there are plenty of rogue Dems who need the boot, and their supporters likewise need a similar sort of enlightenment as I propose for the pro-Bush masses.)
Not
“This is what the people you support have done in the past (you idiot).”
but
“What do you think we should do now?”