Jimmy Carter had his difficulties leading into the 1980 election, but I can’t think of an example of a major party’s political philosophy going quite this hard into the tank in the months leading up to a presidential election. The Bush presidency is going out on about the sourest note conceivable. And John McCain doesn’t have much room to separate himself from the disaster. It’s true that McCain hasn’t always been a lockstep supporter of the Bush administration, but he has supported him the most in the areas where he has failed the most dramatically. John McCain was for invading Iraq before Bush ever decided to run for the presidency, and he was for deregulating the financial services industry before Bush was elected the governor of Texas.
At the outset of the Bush administration, McCain opposed his tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy on the grounds of fiscal conservatism. Now he makes fun of Joe Biden for suggesting that the ultra-wealthy might show some patriotism by paying for a sliver of the cost of the war.
McCain supported the president in his most disastrous domestic policy initiative: the effort to privatize Social Security. And John McCain embraced the worst of Bush’s religious extremism when he selected a John Bircher, creationist, no exception for rape or incent fundamentalist as his running mate.
The Republican Party has proven itself to be inept in both foreign and economic policy and also to be fabulously corrupt. McCain cannot distance himself from that failure. The question is whether this disaster will resonate throughout the downticket races. I hope so.
y’know, i like the sound of that. (pun intended.)
that doesn’t make me a bad person now, does it?
I’ve been wondering if there might be some disgruntled Republicans plotting to reclaim their Party from the nitwits and incompetents who presently are in control?
As a leftwing/commie/hippie/liberal/pinko/treehugger, I think the best thing that could happen to this country is the re-emergence of decent and honest old-fashioned conservatism (yes, there truly was such a thing once upon a time.) We could get along just fine with principled conservatives.
Since you mention Jimmy Carter and the present “disaster”, to keep ourselves honest, we should keep in mind that deregulation began with Carter, when he deregulated the airlines.
The Democratic Party has been a willing accomplice with the Republicans to screw the American people. So far, Obama has gone out of his way to indicate that he is going to continue with the collaboration.
Obama has not raised any objections about the US government buying bad debt deriving from defaulting mortgages. Why couldn’t he have raised the other solution to the problem: having the US government force lenders to renegotiate mortgages to current property values, so that mortgage holders would not be forced to default? That is what a real Democrat, someone who was concerned with the common man, and not afraid of the Man, would do.
Let’s not forget that the Democratic party has historically been more warlike than the Republicans. Some might say that Dubya has seriously altered that balance, but still…
And anyone who ever thought Obama was any kind of “peace candidate” has not been paying attention at all. Just for starters, anyone who says they will significantly increase the size and budget of the military can’t be planning for peace. The United States does not need a more enormous military or an even more enormous military budget unless it plans to use it more.
And, doesn’t Obama want to send an additional 10,000 US soldiers to Afghanistan, that infamous graveyard of empires? Just ask the British and the Russians what they think of the fighting abilities of the Afghan insurgents.
“The question is whether this disaster will resonate throughout the downticket races.“
The most important question is whether this disaster will prompt enough American voters to vote against the gang that brought it on. It is not at all obvious at this point that it will. If the American voters had any sense at all there would not even be a competition. The fact that there is makes one feel very depressed about the mentality of the American public.
The most dangerous thing in the United States is the electorate.
It has become my conclusion, now, that the American democratic system and the Republican Party are completely and totally incompatible. One or the other will prevail but such contradictory entities cannot and will not exist together on this plane of human existence.
What to do? Outlaw the Republican Party as a clear and present danger to the value that the Progressives hold dear; the Constitution, the pursuit of happiness, the promotion of the general welfare. Exile all the neocons because of their inherent hostility to efficient government and the concept of the public good.
Of course, these actions, however meritorious, will not be taken, so the incredible inefficiency of the Republican party in both foreign and domestic policy will continue unabated. Additionally the GOP’s proclivity to savage the truth (and its opponents) in its insane quest for riches will continue to undermine the good things that America has stood for over the years.
So the Empire corrodes from within until other nations in the world perceive us as the menace that we have become and stop lending us the money to enable our imperial addiction. Since everything transpires so rapidly these days, I imagine our decline and fall will be quite precipitous. Perhaps, Wall Street’s current meltdown is the beginning of the end. Perhaps, depression, agonizing as it will be for so many on our planet, is infinitely preferable to World War III which might well write finis to all of us on this beautiful and beloved planet.
I don’t want to outlaw political parties, I wan’t to degrade the right’s ability to weaponize people’s ignorance.
“Weaponize people’s ignorance.” That is an elegant expression, BooMan, and I agree with you completely. It is just that the actions of the evil Republicans and those ludicrous characters, McCain and Palin, are so damned depressing. Why can’t the electorate see these people for the corrupt and hypocritical politicians they really are?
“ludicrous characters” – indeed! And the most shocking thing is that those characters are even more ludicrous than the character who has been in the White House for the past 8 years! Which only shows that a significant percentage of the American public wants the country to be governed by characters out of a TV sitcom – characters that are parodies of themselves. And the rest of the world does not know whether to fall to the floor laughing, or huddle in a heap sobbing.
Weep for this country.
Weep for the world!
h.l.mencken explained that particular phenomena many years ago:
it happened in 2000, and again in 2004. one has to presume, based on those occurrences, that the plain people are quite pleased with themselves; regardless the obvious fact that it’s been a catastrophic success for ignorance.
The Reagan Revolution is dead. Bush and his neo-con thugs killed it in Iraq and on Wall Street. They took down the Constitution as well. But, “Change” is not a political philosophy and it’s not a policy. In fact, “change” is happening without Obama or McCain. There’s a freakin’ stampede going on. The issue is NOT which candidate is a change agent. The issue is which of them can get this mess under control. I keep having this vision of McCain standing in front of the onrushing hordes, screaming at them to “cut this shit out!!!” He’ll be trampled. Obama, on the other hand, … I don’t know. Maybe all politics is faith-based, but I don’t like it.
Thank John McCain – vote4thefuture
I wish they had included that really creepy hug picture in this video!
Um, yep…
Is Bush still around, or has he moved to Paraguay already?
Paraguay has a new President (Fugo), formerly a bishop in the Roman Catholic church, of the liberation theology stripe. Oh yes, the new pres says he will enforce the extradition laws of his country.
Good luck, Mr. Bushie.
I will not wait to breathe for someone to demand extradition of any of those sociopathic criminals from anywhere to anywhere. They will live long, comfortable lives and die in their beds.
Didn’t realize he’d said that (Fernando Lugo), thanks for making my day. (pardon me while I laugh – hah, hah!!! maybe it’s time for Bushco to sell the paraguay property.)
The kingmakers of the Republican Party have themselves to blame for the blunders of Bush and the flailing lying flip-flopping of McCain. Their selfishness has led them to value only three qualities in a leader of their party: electable affability, good networking, and willingness to make the wealthy much wealthier.
The last two nominations for President are classic cases of ne’er-do-wells failing upward. Just think of the lazy C student whose legacy admissions to prestigious schools helped inflict him on the world as President of the US.
Think of Sen. McCain the legacy admission to the US Naval Academy graduating with a ranking of 894th out of 899. Despite that, the admiral’s son was admitted to flight school. Despite his awful record as a pilot who crashed several expensive warplanes he was made a squadron commander. But his greatest political move came when he cheated on his first wife with a young heiress. Good networking, that.
You forgot to mention that they are perverts. I’m thinking Foley and Vitter here.