S. Blumenthal: Shipwrecked (no one can rescue him now)

[kskiska]

Bush has so thoroughly destroyed the Republican establishment that no one, not even his dad, can rescue him now.

There is no one left to rescue the Republican Party from George W. Bush. He is home alone. The Republican-establishment wise men whose words were once quiet commands are shouting unheeded warnings. The Republican leaders of Congress are distracted and obsessed with their own crises of corruption.

(snip)

The storm enveloping President Bush is a consequence of his adoption of the vicious smear tactics of the Nixon political operation, learned there by Karl Rove, who was called as a witness to testify about them before the Watergate inquiry, and of Bush's elevation to power of the neoconservatives removed by Reagan and excluded from office by Bush's father. Bush is haunted by the history he insisted on defying.

The elements of the Republican establishment that Bush brought into his first administration as a sort of symbolic tribute were gone by his second. By their nature, these people are discreet, measured and private. It is not their impulse to voice disagreement in public. Their sweeping and emotional jeremiads against what Bush has wrought are extraordinary not only in their substance but in having been made at all. Those expressing their disquiet about Bush are more than simply losers in bureaucratic struggles for primacy of place. Once representative of the heart and soul of the Grand Old Party, they are historical castaways. They stand for another Republican Party that has been supplanted by Bush's version.

(snip)

But Scowcroft the foreign policy mandarin may not have been exposed to the partisan Cheney when he served as secretary of defense in the administration of Bush Sr. He may have missed Cheney's tenure as a representative in the House leadership, where he compiled a far-right voting record and, as House minority whip during the 1980s, was the hidden hand behind the rise of Newt Gingrich and his band of radicals. When he was slated to be Bush's running mate, it was widely assumed that Cheney would act as a stabilizing and moderating presence. Only those who understood his congressional career knew of his affinities with the radical right, his vengeful instincts and his mean-spiritedness. His emergence at the center of the "cabal" now under investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald should not surprise those who have penetrated his avuncular image to see the hard man beneath. Cheney was not the substitute father figure but the false father.

more…
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/10/27/bush_fall/

[kineneb]

1. George should have heeded Santayana

but then reading was never his long suit. That quote about learning from history...

or as Molly Ivins says it: when you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, you need to stop digging...

[IChing]

2. Sidney writes so well on Cheney that

he allows others to see him as we do
.
An evil father figure, sorta like Senator Palaptine, that wanted to be emperor. Cheney looks more evil everyday, that his hatred, vile language is reflecting on his looks, just as Palaptine gained more power the power corrupted his being. Cheney wants torture and distruction as read in the Washington Post editorial. His ties to HELLIBURTON speak for themselves.

Scowcroft

"The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney. I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore."

[cliss]

3. Incredible photos. Absolutely stunning of Cheney.

Last year during the VP debates, someone said that Cheney is only about 10 years older than John Edwards. I gasped when I read that. Cheney looks 110 years older than Edwards.

And look at him now. That's Cheney with RumsFailed on the bottom photo. Someone posted one photo that was amazing: it was a younger Cheney, sitting next to RumsFailed. They were both sitting in a chair, in front of Gerald Ford. They were both looking at each other, like they do in the bottom photo. They looked so evil, so conniving. Like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, like they're sharing a juicy secret. And Ford is clueless.

Just unbelievable, that these two losers would be running the country, a mere 30 years later.

Running into the ground, that is.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. Great pics. Uncle Dick certainly...

...does have the face he deserves. I think most of us do by the time we reach his age.

[Demeter]

5. Don't Feel Sorry for Those GOP Outcasts

They brought it upon themselves and the country by letting Nixon get away with it (and all those pardons) and letting Reagan get away with it (Iran/Contra and all those pardons) and letting Poppy get away with it (secrecy and all those pardons) not to mention the GOP LEgislators of the Contract ON America.

Failure to learn from history is not just a Bush failure. It's a GOP failure. It's even moreso a PNAC failure.