I cannot imagine a group of men more unsuited to be the pool from which the leader of this nation will be chosen.
And their biggest problem is that these candidates and their party members think that a rich, old, white male is the only image of authority.
I have slowly begun to form a thesis that, at its core, Conservatism's greatest weakness (and fatal flaw) is that it lacks imagination. Illustration:
From Freedom's Power by Paul Starr, via Ezra Klein:
Far from making the United States stronger, Bush’s policies have dissipated American power. In his speech, the president suggested that if the United States failed in Iraq, Iran would be emboldened. But Iran has obviously already been emboldened because its leaders believe that an America mired in Iraq can make only empty threats.What I take away from this isn't that Bush consciously squandered America's 'soft power' - he never knew that America had it.
To use power ineffectually is to destroy it. Conservatives may have believed that the unilateral assertion of American military might is the best way to extend American influence abroad and promote democracy. The experience of the past several years, however, show how limited an understanding of power that is. The Bush strategy has undermined not just America’s soft power--its ability to attract support throughout the world--but its hard power as well.
Examination: Bush is a white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant male from an elite, monied and powerful family and the son of a President. Never in his life has he been forced into being the less powerful party in a situation. Apply this mentality to international politics...If all power flows from strength of arms, why wouldn't every nation in the world roll-over in front of America's clear status as the world's only super-power? Nobody can (militarily) stop America from invading Iraq, why worry about U.N. approval? The other nations need to know their place. Until they're in a position to land an army on America's shores, they have no right to tell America how to use it's military strength.
Sebastian Mallaby in the Washington Post:
Republicans are good at reinvention. They have appealed to voters' dark side (Nixon's Southern strategy) as well as to their sunny side (Reagan's "Morning in America"). They have skipped from anti-government populism (Newt Gingrich and the leave-us-alone coalition) to big-government machine politics (the alliance with corporate lobbyists known as the K Street Project). Through all these transformations, the GOP has sustained its big-tent coalition. The question in the wake of its election thumpin' is whether the tent will split.Mr. Mallaby points out that on many of the 'Culture War' questions that dominate politics, Libertarians are much more like Democrats than they are Republicans. Many issues Libertarians and Republicans agreed on in the past (various tax issues and some welfare issues) have been 'solved' and as the Republican Party becomes more beholden to its Southern electoral stronghold, the GOP moves away from Libertarians.
You can see this possibility in "Liberaltarians," an essay in the New Republic by Brink Lindsey, the director of research at the libertarian Cato Institute. Lindsey is not merely joining the large crowd of disenchanted conservatives who believe that the Republican Party has betrayed its principles -- spraying money at farmers, building bridges to nowhere and presiding over the fastest ramp-up in federal spending since Lyndon Johnson. Rather, Lindsey is taking a step further, arguing that libertarians should ditch the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats.
Christian conservatives now press for affirmative state action on behalf of traditional values: amendments to the constitution to bar gay marriage, government efforts to teach abstinence, federal payments to faith-based groups. All these policies appall libertarians.Not good news for the Republicans. As the lable 'Conservative' become more charged, the number of self-identifying 'Libertarians' grows - especially in the North East and West. Is there really a movement towards an era of Liberaltarian politics? I'm not sure.
But it was a domestic right-wing terrorist attacking Air America and Al Franken, so you won't hear about it on the news...
From the New York Post:
Three packages containing white powder were found yesterday in the mail by a worker at the Manhattan studios of liberal talk-radio station Air America, police said.Side note: Here's the deleted Free Republic thread on Chad Castagana/Marc Costanzo, the Freeper who sent fake anthrax to liberals which I posted about yesterday. Plenty of liberal-blaming and disbelieving fun.
The employee made the find at the stations' headquarters at 641 Sixth Ave.
The three packages - one of which was addressed to on-air personality Al Franken - contained a powder-like substance, which proved to be harmless.
But you aren't likely to hear George W. Bush crowing about this one.
From Rawstory:
Anthrax hoaxer may be Free Republic posterThe Rawstory piece points out a bunch of similarities. I'm not going to say that it's true yet, but they do seem damning.
Larisa Alexandrovna and Brian Beutler
Published: Monday November 13, 2006
The man arrested on Saturday for sending more than a dozen envelopes containing "fake anthrax" to anti-war celebrities, journalists, and politicians may have ties to the conservative supersite Free Republic, RAW STORY has found.
Chad Castagana, a 39 year old Californian named as the FBI's prime suspect in the case, is due in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles today, where procecutors are expected to file criminal complaint against him for sending threatening letters through the U.S. mail. Castagana has an extensive online history, often writing about science fiction and conservative politics, and many bloggers are convinced that he is also a contributor at the conservative activist Free Republic website under the name Marc Costanzo.
[...]
Most striking is this Costanzo comment from September, weeks before the anti-Bush MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann was sent a threatening fake anthrax letter in New York: "This partisan loudmouth Olbermann is a demagogue! Someone should find out where he lives and mail him a Ted Kazcinski letter."
In the 10 years since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing killed 168 people, roughly 60 right-wing terrorist plots have been uncovered in the United States, according to an upcoming report by the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. The plots, all foiled by law enforcement, reportedly included violent plans by antigovernment militia groups, racist skinhead organizations, and Ku Klux Klan members to use various types of chemical bombs and other weapons.Ted Kazinsky, the Waco Siege, Ruby Ridge, Gordon Kahl, the Montana Freemen and those who engage in anti-abortion violence are more representative of the typical terrorist in the United States. Islamicist terrorist, though responsible for the most devastating attack, are in the minority.
The plots demonstrate that the Department of Homeland Security still needs to closely monitor right-wing groups, says Heidi Beirich, with the Intelligence Project. The DHS was criticized by hate-group experts in April when an internal planning document on domestic terrorist threats was leaked to the press. The DHS report listed radical leftist groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, which have been involved in numerous arson cases, but not violent right-wing militia and skinhead groups.
After the fall of Saddam, during the week that we were actually greeted as liberators, the Bush Administration probably drooled at the opportunity to build a country - from the ground up - where conservative ideals were made institutions, where all the goals of Conservatism could be reached and implemented without opposition.
That effort seems to be the only success BushCo can claim in Iraq.
From the Washington
Post:
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office has instructed the country's health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the United Nations, jeopardizing a key source of information on the number of civilian war dead in Iraq, according to a U.N. document.Don't like the numbers? Just stop measuring them! It's the GOP's all purpose solution.
Today the Liberal Blogosphere is drawing attention to the failures of our government in response to (and preparation for) Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans one year ago.
Debris still clog the streets 12 months after the storm. What work has been done is tainted by price gouging and no-bid contract awards. Katrina refugees, yes American refugees, still live in trailers with no signs of change or progress.
This is due to George W. Bush's the implementation of the Republican ideology in a purer form than any seen since before FDR.
Most frightening, Katrina and the disaster in New Orleans is only the tip of the iceberg. All the problems with infrastructure in NOLA that lead to the destruction of an American city exist in infrastructure all across the nation. From the Seattle Times:
WASHINGTON -— A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.Katrina has shown that Republicans have no interest in maintaining our nation's vital infrastructure. It's a question of ideology. Small government conservatism laid bare.
None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.
"When I see events like these, I become concerned that we've lost focus on the core operational functionality of the nation's infrastructure and are becoming a fragile nation, which is just as bad -— if not worse -— as being an insecure nation," said Christian Beckner, a Washington analyst who runs the respected Web site Homeland Security Watch.
The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.
"I thought [Hurricane] Katrina was a hell of a wake-up call, but people are missing the alarm," said Casey Dinges, the society's managing director of external affairs.
It noted that half the 257 locks operated by the Army Corps of Engineers on inland waterways are functionally obsolete, more than one-quarter of the nation's bridges are structurally deficient or obsolete, and $11 billion is needed annually to replace aging drinking-water facilities.What does The Decider, the Compassionate Conservative, the leader of the Republican Party have to say about that?
"Infrastructure is always a difficult issue," Bush acknowledged. "It's a federal responsibility and a state and local responsibility. And I, frankly, feel like we've upheld our responsibility at the federal level with the highway bill."And we spend billions every week rebuilding (or not rebuilding, as the case may be) that we destroyed in the first place in Iraq.
Really. The National Review compiled a list, which the NY Times has posted. The Top Ten:
1. "Won't Get Fooled Again," by The Who.Um, The Beatles? I mean, yeah, the Beatles were railing against taxes in that one song but have you listened to anything else by the band that invented the 60s? The Who? Um, not really values voters. And yeah, U2 may reference Christianity, but I'm pretty sure that nobody would call Bono a Conservative. Relieving Third World Debt is now a Conservative cause? Sex Pistols? Punk is not Conservative. Sorry. The Kinks and Metallica don't really fit with Jerry Falwell's vision for America. The only way you could possibly call the Rolling Stones Conservative is if you examined them as a corporation that has remained profitable for 40 years.
2. "Taxman," by The Beatles.
3. "Sympathy for the Devil," by The Rolling Stones.
4. "Sweet Home Alabama," by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," by The Beach Boys.
6. "Gloria," by U2.
7. "Revolution," by The Beatles.
8. "Bodies," by The Sex Pistols.
9. "Don't Tread on Me," by Metallica.
10. "20th Century Man," by The Kinks
32. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself," by The Georgia Satellites.You know that this song is demonstrably not about 'affirming old-time sexual mores,' right?
An outstanding vocal performance, with lyrics that affirm old—time sexual mores: "She said no huggy, no kissy until I get a wedding vow."
