A number of astute observers have predicted that as rule by the Bush Gang is seen by more and more Americans to have been an epic disaster, the GOP will try to save its image by distancing itself from the cult of Bushism: somehow it was special features of Bush himself, or his gang, that led to their special incompetence at implementing policy. Incompetence let Republicanism down this time; True Republicanism, of course, forever remaining the never yet correctly implemented utopia.
The key question for True Republicans is: If not Bush, who would have done better? Who is that dream Republican figure who would serve as president of a GOP-controlled government and *not* leave a wake of disaster everywhere? (Feel free to swap out more figures of the Bush Gang and replace them with a more expansive Executive Dream Team.)
(My prediction: there's no good answer. It won't happen that the Republicans control all three branches of the government (and the mass media) and epic disaster be avoided. As SusanG puts it,
Everything in this administration comes down to three political positioning maneuvers (and note that #2 and #3 really are subsets merely designed to serve #1):
1. Corporations should operate absolutely unfettered in order to line the pockets of the oligarchical elite (See: empire building, environmental and safety deregulation, using the armed forces to pry open new markets/ resources/cheap labor, tax cuts, union busting, privatization of anything and everything, etc.)
2. Pandering to the Religious Right (in order to get the votes to further #1).
3. Escape any and all responsibility for the obscenely awful consequences of #1 upon the 90% of Americans who fund the stupidity - and pay the personal price in their daily lives - for these policies.
That's not just Bush and his inner circle: #1 is the core tenet of the modern GOP; #2 and #3 follow on as if by force of nature. For instance, not leaving thousands trapped in the Superdome surrounded by rising floodwaters would require an emergency agency with competent leadership and the goal of protecting everyone, rather than a crony- and ideology-police infested patronage machine that only works well when white GOP voters are in danger; a budgetary system sensitive to the infrastructure needs of cities in environmentally sensitive areas, rather than to fat giveaways to rich folks and make-work projects for big corporations indifferent to their use-value; and people in positions of power at all levels of government concerned with reality-based policy to support the general welfare.
None of that sounds like the modern GOP to me.)
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