This item in the Los Angeles Times might just possibly indicate that they have. Maybe they are beginning to suspect that they backed a really lousy horse. That the Mid East Democracy plan is a chimera, foisted on them by an ideological cabal, naive about Mid East culture and lead by a sophomoric nitwit who thinks in bumper stickers.
Better late than never but recovery of our credibility and influence even with our ostensible allies might take a long time.
Now if only those who voted for this bullshit will arouse themselves.
Too little too late for the Far right of the party. Hopefully this will bounce the lot of them out in the next 2 elections and get the Republican party back into the hands of the moderates. I am hoping for a large democratic victory this election, so the Republican party can nominate a more centrally appealing candidate for POTUS. Someone like McCain or Giuliani of course come to my mind.
Kean is interesting. I have the utmost respect for his Dad, but instead of playing to his father’s strengths, he started this campaign align with the right of the party, when his father was definitely a moderate. As the campaign has progressed he is sounding more and more like his dad and I hope this is the real Kean that shucked his bad advisers. He has even remembered to speak positively on Environmental concerns in the last month or two. I might vote for him yet, but I am still up in the air.
At this point the entire Republican party needs to be punished (and severely) for letting things get this out of hand. That way, maybe next time when one party controls all branches of government, they will engage in some self restraint and self policing. One of the rationales behind the two party system is accountability and I always wondered when this might come into play; well this seems like an appropriate example (one party control of congress and the white house) of when a party as a whole should be held accountable for government mismanagement.
Today’s online New York Times has a “cover” article about infighting already breaking out among Republicans and conservatives over who was responsible for losing the election in November. Of course, the election has not yet been held, but the Pubbies seem certain that they will lose it. That’s downright refreshing!
I am worried, however, about Rove’s certainty that the Pubbies will win. Election night will be verrrrrrry interesting – one way or the other – this year.
The cynic in me says that they’re finally seeing that the GOP Rubber Raft is about to drop over the edge of Niagara Falls, and are preparing to blame each other for the eventual splashdown. None of these revelations are new to those of us in the reality-based coalition; the Republican rank-and-file simply chose to ignore them when they were still riding high in the polls.
The Democrats have mostly run for cover. Many of them have voted for things like giving the president powers that are unprecedented, I believe, since the Alien and Sedition Act.
All of congress has simply waved through whatever the bunch of nuts in the administration asked for.
I hate to use the phrase but they cut and ran out of fear of being labled “soft on terrorism” a long time ago. Instead of getting together and opposing GW’s senseless actions with a coherent alternative they scattered like a bunch of bunnies.
What a horrible sentiment. He’s basically saying, “Even if we privately admit we screwed up, we can’t cop to it publicly. We just need to defend our (admittedly wrong) stance more vigorously!”
If there is a god, I hope he counts every American who dies in Iraq between now and when we finally do get out of there, and takes justice out of your hide for each one of them.
The failure is ours, Dave. “We, the People” is where the buck stops, our reps have only the courage we lend them. The glory of democracy is simultaneously its only tragic flaw: us.
I don’t see much “awakening” here. Rather, it looks like the wagons are still circled, but they’re shooting inwards. There’s no self-analysis, no reflection, no discernable hind of conscience. It’s just another round of you-a-culpa, this time aimed at party members who supposedly weren’t faithful enough somehow. There’s no acknowledgement that the plans themselves all stank on ice. No, the implementation was bungled, e.g. Iraq wasn’t a monstrously ill-conceived mistake, just a lost opportunity. Why should the electorate be encouraged? These guys have learned nothing except how make more excuses for their individual inadequacies.
Er, “hint” of conscience. The “hind” of conscience should have been booted a long time ago, but it’s a kicking contest between an army of one-legged men, as it were.
Oh he aroused minself. What he failed to do was arouse very many pages.
If you are speaking in general terms, maybe. I refuse to take any personal blame. From the day GW was nominated I’ve written over and over that he has a solid record of demonstrated incompetence.
I guess you can’t can’t expect many of the general public to be very good at risk assessment, but I think we should be able to count on political leaders to be mature. People have swallowed hook, line and sinker an inflated picture of the danger to the US from terrorism given that we take normal precautions plus some sensible augmentation of transportation security.
Instead, any attempt to argue sanity was met with, “What do you want a mushroom cloud over New York?”
I’m too old to emigrate, dammit, but I’ve lost a lot of respect for many of my fellow citizens…
Seriously, how long do you think it will take before the right’s election post-mortem will assign the proportion of blame for our eventual capitulation in Iraq held by Republicans to the fact that Mark Foley is a boy-loving fag?
I concur completely. The GOP desperately needs to be controlled by the Democrats, at the earliest possible opportunity. For instance, two and a half weeks from now.
