"I Couldn't Stand to Support This Dynasty of Deceit" Phillips Interview)

[kskiska]

Kevin Phillips talks about his big Bush book, all the rumors surrounding George W. (some of them true), and how the Democrats can stop sabotaging themselves.

By Joan Walsh

(snip)

Earlier in the primary campaign you praised Howard Dean for channeling anger at the war in Iraq. What do you make of the fact that he did so poorly in Iowa?

I actually think it was a good thing for the Democrats. I think that Dean had lost his connection, and he started to drop quickly. I think it's crucial for the Democrats to nominate someone who can substantively, effectively indict several combinations of George Bush politics: One is the economy, and the others are foreign policy and terror and Iraq. I think if you've got either a Kerry or a Clark, you've got somebody who's able to reverse the jujitsu of the war on terror issue. Because Bush is somebody who doesn't have any military skills, and who also has a dubious record of time in the Texas Air National Guard.

Do you think that story could have legs again? Your book looks a lot at the dark side of Bush's past: The holes in his résumé, the circumstantial evidence for drug abuse, as well as the charge that he went missing in the National Guard. Why do you think those things never got the spotlight from the media that every Clinton scandal did?

Well, I don't agree there was a spotlight on every Clinton scandal. At all. I do agree they haven't put enough of a spotlight on Bush, or the two Bushes. One of the reasons is 9/11.

(snip)

Well, wouldn't you say they're getting better at politics? The first George Bush couldn't get himself elected -- he really wasn't accepted in Texas -- but thanks to his appointments, he became vice president. But Jeb and George W. became governors, and the current president really managed to get rid of the Eastern elitist thing, all the things about his father that Texans found grating.

But there are a new set of things in the son that other people find grating. I mean, the father had things that annoyed the city ethnics, the Southern fundamentalists, he seemed too much an Ivy Leaguer. The son took care of the fundamentalists and the Texans, the good ol' boys love him, but an awful lot of people from New England and the Great Lakes and the Pacific Northwest listen to that twang and see the Texas Ranger foreign policy, and say, "I can't take this."

more…
http://salon.com/books/int/2004/01/27/phillips_qa/index.html

[bemildred]

1. This is cool.

It means they are going to take the little weasel down.
When they start demonizing Bush but representing that the system
itself is not corrupt, things are in damage control mode and the
stupid fuck is going to be removed.

[coloradodem2005]

2. Who's "they"?

[bemildred]

4. Here, from the article:

"I do agree they haven't put enough of a spotlight on Bush"

Same "they".

[papau]

3. I loved the salon piece! - my favorite paragraphs are below

"I couldn't stand to support this dynasty of deceit"
Kevin Phillips talks about his big Bush book, all the rumors surrounding George W. (some of them true), and how the Democrats can stop sabotaging themselves.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
by Joan Walsh
Salon.com


There's some truth to that, because he carried about 84 percent of the fundamentalist/evangelical folks. That was extraordinary. But you know, you've also got a generation gap in Republican politics. Most of the people involved in the Nixon or early Reagan years, they're older than I am, they're in their 60s and 70s, and this crowd is not particularly high on the Bushes. But you've got most of Congress on the Republican side that's in their 40s and 50s, and they've come up in a Bush-friendly era. They're used to the Bushes. I went off the reservation at the time of the first Bush. But an awful lot of Republicans my age and older -- in the Northeast, in the Pacific Northwest, in the Great Lakes -- they're very unhappy ...

I don't think that the Democrats could have done anything, really. But what happened was that they misfired on three crucial issues: They misfired on the way they handled the war issue, they misfired on socioeconomic issues, they misfired on the cultural issues. You can't misfire on all three fronts. But you know, right now, the conservatives are coming close to misfiring in the same way. They're botching the economy, they're botching Iraq, they may have botched 9/11, and they've got the religious right running loose, so they're going to botch culture. And when you get to that point, the motion of your elites -- the forward motion of your interest groups inside the Republican Party -- gets very hard to turn around.

Kerry's bought himself some respect, Edwards likewise. You could say, hey, there's the ticket. Edwards could be good on the domestic, populist side of things and Kerry on the military side. But it's important for them that they'll be inoculated from cockiness by Clark coming in. Plus, I have no use for Lieberman, but he'll be a factor in New Hampshire.
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Read this at: http://www.salon.com/books/int/2004/01/27/phillips_qa/index.html

"the voter-roll cleansing story " at: http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/