Former Bush economic adviser Bruce Bartlett: GOP is Now Demanding "Absolute Subservience"

[RedEarth]

...via Kos......


Bartlett: GOP is Now Demanding "Absolute Subservience"

Following close on the heels of conservative commentator David Frum's recent column in which he lambasted the Republicans for their obstructionist tactics, former Bush economic adviser Bruce Bartlett has some pretty harsh words for his party too:


"What’s really going on here is that adherence to conservative principles has been –- is out the window now. All that matters now is absolute subservient adherence to the Republican Party line of the day. And that’s what got David into trouble. He was critical, not even of Republican principles, but of Republican tactics on the health care debate. And now, even that is considered, you know, you can’t say that or you lose your job."

...video at the link.....

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/26/851188/-Bartlett:-GOP-is-Now-Demanding-Absolute-Subservience

......and more Barlett comments from Joe Klein....


More on Frum
Posted by Joe Klein Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 6:23 pm 50 Comments
This, from Bruce Bartlett, another independent-minded conservative, is fascinating:

"Since, is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do."

Thre is a mania among Republicans right now. They thought they had Obama down for the count when Scott Brown won in Massachusetts. They didn't. The President managed to pass the one bill they hated (and feared) the most. Their reaction has been to get even more extreme...drinking their own kool-aid. I just said on Hardball, "It's getting pretty close to Jonestown."


http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/03/25/more-on-frum/?xid=rss-topstories

[louis-t]

1. Key words being "critical of tactics, not principle"

Repugs have their own definition of 'treason'. It involves only party, not country.

[quiet.american]

2. Fascinating, indeed. Thanks for posting. nt

[whathehell]

3. ..And we do wish them a fine, political Jonestown!...Maybe then

they will go the Way of the Whig Party!

[DBoon]

4. The Republican Party is a fascist or falangist organization

It is an authoritarian machine intended to seize complete control of society in the interests of its members, crushing dissent and opposition.

It is not a political party in the way parties exist in a parliamentary democracy, to represent a constituency and bargain (meaning compromise) to give their constituency polices they favor.

The modern Republican party owes more to Francisco Franco and General Pinochet than it does to Eisenhower or Herbert Hoover.

[anigbrowl]

7. Sadly true

Some conservatives I can disagree with 100%, but we can still have a respectful and intellectually sound debate. Want to invade Iran? I don't, but I'm willing to hear your point of view about the possible outcome of their gaining nuclear capability given their historic pattern of behavior. Should we outlaw abortion? I think not, but am willing to hear a coherent argument to the contrary. We might and probably will continue to disagree after our debate, but at least we'll know exactly where the disagreement arises. This ability to debate a subject on its own merits has been the basis of civil society since the days of ancient Greece.

However, the current absolutist direction of the GOP and its mutant offshoot, the Tea not-quite-a-Party, is something quite different: the pursuit of power with no pretense of or interest in rationality...although of course they have been trending that way for many years now. They are in the grip of a religious mania, albeit one that is only tenuously connected to any particular denomination.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. I like how all of the stupid fuckers who helped set the stage for this catastrophe...

...are now trying to wash their hands of it.

[anigbrowl]

8. That's what happens when people start believing the end justifies the means.

While a good many of them deserve a slap upside the head because should have bloody well known better, rather than putting them on trial I think our first priority must be to find out what they can tell us, in the same manner one would debrief a defector from a totalitarian regime.

[wordpix]

6. a family member used to work for AEI

I get the feeling she wasn't real happy with them at the end of her tenure (she left voluntarily).