Comments on: Two Basic Problems with the Republican Party http://realcurrents.blogsome.com/2007/07/14/two-basic-problems-with-the-republican-party/ Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:09:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=1.5.1-alpha by: mclaren http://realcurrents.blogsome.com/2007/07/14/two-basic-problems-with-the-republican-party/#comment-83 Sun, 15 Jul 2007 08:32:17 +0100 http://realcurrents.blogsome.com/2007/07/14/two-basic-problems-with-the-republican-party/#comment-83 “Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity. (..) “The Interior Department [was] packed with opponents of environmental protection, who “presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands to industry and developers” that `deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue.’ Oil leases, anyone? “Equally reminiscent of current events, was the state of the Justice Department under Ed Meese, a man who gives Alberto Gonzales and John Mitchell serious competition for the title of worst attorney general ever. The politicization of Justice got so bad that in 1988 six senior officials, all Republicans, including the deputy attorney general and the chief of the criminal division, resigned in protest. “Mr. Reagan’s administration, like Mr. Bush’s, was run by movement conservatives — people who built their careers by serving the alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package. “In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs. If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be `loyal Bushies.’” —Paul Krugman, “Dont Cry For Reagan,” March 2007 “Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity. (..)
“The Interior Department [was] packed with opponents of environmental protection, who “presided over a massive sell-off of federal lands to industry and developers” that `deprived the department of several billion dollars in annual revenue.’ Oil leases, anyone?
“Equally reminiscent of current events, was the state of the Justice Department under Ed Meese, a man who gives Alberto Gonzales and John Mitchell serious competition for the title of worst attorney general ever. The politicization of Justice got so bad that in 1988 six senior officials, all Republicans, including the deputy attorney general and the chief of the criminal division, resigned in protest.
“Mr. Reagan’s administration, like Mr. Bush’s, was run by movement conservatives — people who built their careers by serving the alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. And both cronyism and abuse of power are part of the movement conservative package.
“In part this is because people whose ideology says that government is always the problem, never the solution, see no point in governing well. So they use political power to reward their friends, rather than find people who will actually do their jobs. If expertise is irrelevant, who gets the jobs? No problem: the interlocking, lavishly financed institutions of movement conservatism, which range from K Street to Fox News, create a vast class of apparatchiks who can be counted on to be `loyal Bushies.’” —Paul Krugman, “Dont Cry For Reagan,” March 2007

]]> by: Indigent A-hole http://realcurrents.blogsome.com/2007/07/14/two-basic-problems-with-the-republican-party/#comment-82 Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:40:24 +0100 http://realcurrents.blogsome.com/2007/07/14/two-basic-problems-with-the-republican-party/#comment-82 It is too late for the GOP to distance themselves from torture, irrational and unnecessary war, extremist civil liberties violations, and all the rest- like it or not the fate of the Republican party is intimately entwined with the fate of the Iraqi people, and with Bush and his boss, Cheney, for all time. Other parties have paid the <a href="http://indigentahole.blogspot.com/2007/05/death-of-political-party.html" rel="nofollow">ultimate price</a> for being on the wrong side of the issues- I believe the GOP will follow the example of the Whigs and the Federalists. It is too late for the GOP to distance themselves from torture, irrational and unnecessary war, extremist civil liberties violations, and all the rest- like it or not the fate of the Republican party is intimately entwined with the fate of the Iraqi people, and with Bush and his boss, Cheney, for all time.

Other parties have paid the ultimate price for being on the wrong side of the issues- I believe the GOP will follow the example of the Whigs and the Federalists.

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