One young political appointee (a 24-year-old Ivy League graduate) argued that Iraq should not enshrine judicial review in its constitution because it might lead to the legalization of abortion. A much more senior Iraqi interlocutor (a widely experienced Iraqi-American lawyer) became so exasperated with the young man’s audacity that he finally challenged him:

“You must have thoroughly studied the history of the British occupation of Iraq.”

“Yes, I did,” the young American replied proudly.

“I thought so,” said the Iraqi, “because you seem determined to repeat every one of their mistakes.”

I mean, where do you even begin?

When you have people who believe that the operation of government can be improved, you greatly increase the chances that the operation of government will be improved, obviously. But Bush and his boys simply don’t believe the operation of government can be improved. They believe government is purely bad. And this belief colors their ability to actually do anything.

A pretty fair precis of the current regime’s philosophy: except that I would add one observation:

Despite the Bush 43 Administration’s lip-service to the old “conservative” shibboleth of “small [no] government”; in actual practice, their commitment to implementing this goal seems to activate only in inverse proportion to how much money any particular in-group (e.g. campaign contributors or other “connected” industries) can make from the process. In other countries, this sysytem is widely (and rightly) derided as “corruption” or “crony capitalism”: however, in today’s America, it has simply been relabeled as “privatization” – and a whole industry (well-financed, of course) has grown up to convince us that this is a Good Thing. It’s all in the presentation, y’know….

Of course, it may be after the US has gone through its own fit of authoritarian madness, over-extension of the military, and collapse of the economy, so don’t hold your breath.

It took 50 years before the Potemkin village known as the Soviet Economy and the inefficiency of 5-year plans actually came home to roost. But when it did, it hit the floor with a splendid crash.

Politicians realize this. Most of their activity is the practice of promising everything to everyone in order to get re-elected, leaning on the auditors to shove the nasty stuff under the table, and hoping the whole system of cards will hold up until after they leave office. Feh.

But Bush and his boys simply don’t believe the operation of government can be improved. They believe government is purely bad. And this belief colors their ability to actually do anything. From thier point of view, obviously Walter Reed and FEMA and so on are disasterous because they are the government.

I disagree in part. Bush doesn’t respect the responsibility of the government. FEMA and Walter Reed serve a purpose, but the purpose is not to lend emergency aid or rehabilitate wounded soldiers. FEMA and WR are tax-dollar trophies to be awarded to politically loyal supporters. Before and during Clinton, the Repubs worked themselves into a lather over favoritism and the spoils system and Dem corruption. But rather than fixing the alleged errors, the Republicans merely replaced Democratic officals with Republican officals and carried on with the work they believed Democrats had been doing all along. New boss same as the old boss. Republicans had incumbancy, so they assumed they’d get their 40 years in the sun just like the Democrats had. Republicans completely overlooked the positive contributions Democratic office-holders had made as they were blinded by their own rhetoric. They assumed the Dems were fuck-ups locked in power by the system. After removing said Dems, they assumed they’d get the same, illusionary, sweet deal.

Twelve years latter, they’re discovering how wrong they were.

And the reason it took so long is the varying degrees of hippie-hatred which kept the John Cole’s of the Former Right (John Cole not included)(this one never, ever stops being funny for me) on the reservation for much longer than would have otherwise been the case. I mean, even after Schiavo, it took John, a pretty sharp guy, almost a year to finally bring himself to admit that even if there were hippies under the bed, they were still the far lesser of two evils.

and even if they were dirty hippies at least the pachouli covered it up…

I also wonder what happened to the old foreign policy realists of the Repubs.

I’m sure they still write papers and form ‘study groups’ and whatnot—they just aren’t in power.

John Cole just voted for Byrd for Senator last November. And this time last year, he was still staunchly proud of his ‘04 Bush vote. Is it possible pragmatic Republicans have disappeared because pragmatic people have stopped being Republicans?

I agree with the obvious answer that they’re all at least DINOs at this point. Or at least if you ask the Bush Base that’s what they’ll tell you.

And the reason it took so long is the varying degrees of hippie-hatred which kept the John Cole’s of the Former Right (John Cole not included)(this one never, ever stops being funny for me) on the reservation for much longer than would have otherwise been the case. I mean, even after Schiavo, it took John, a pretty sharp guy, almost a year to finally bring himself to admit that even if there were hippies under the bed, they were still the far lesser of two evils.

Now if you’ll recall, Gore tried to “reinvent” government. Many state, local, and federal government programs have implemented sunset rules, sunshine rules, transparency rules, etc. Many government employees now get MBAs to try to learn advanced ways of improving operations. Even many proponents of privatization intend the privatization to help the government deliver its services better. When you have people who believe that the operation of government can be improved, you greatly increase the chances that the operation of government will be improved, obviously. But Bush and his boys simply don’t believe the operation of government can be improved. They believe government is purely bad. And this belief colors their ability to actually do anything. From thier point of view, obviously Walter Reed and FEMA and so on are disasterous because they are the government.

Now if there were Republicans who believed the following—“I’m for limiting government and think government should not be in the business of delivering this or that service, but I feel on the other hand that for those services that government must provide, it should be as well managed as possible,” well, I think that would be popular. Mike Huckabee sometimes seems to express that kind of ideology. The Bush crowd, not so much.

For example, my father was a Conservative, much in the same vein as JC. He hated clinton for acting like the worlds police and getting involved in places like Bosnia. He believed we shouldn’t get involved in foreign wars unless we had a vital national interest at stake. He hateed taxes and believed government should stay the hell out of our lives and should not be big, or big brother for that matter.

So along comes W. in 2000. W talks about not doing nation building, restoring honor and integrity to the white house (my father was by no means a social conservative at this point but he still disliked Clinton and so Monica just gave him more ammo) and all the lofty idealistic talk. He disliked Gore seeing gore as a leftover from clinton minus the personality (my father even conceded Clinton was smart, erudite and a great speaker) and voted for W.

Thus began a descent into madness as I call it. He began adopting the Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter trinity of disdain for anything when it came to Democrats (now mind you he voted for Dukakis in 88 and Perot in 92). He began drinking the unholy kool-aid and the war shit appealed to his machismo as much as it did to his anger over 9-11.

So with that came the rest of so-called conservatism, the social conservatism the loyalty oaths to party and to the leader. By osmosis so, too, came the loyalty to the ideology of hatred and bigotry. This was more even more shocking because despite all of his faults my father had raised me to be tolerant and open minded.

Fat forward to ‘04. The kool-aid glasses are on and the addicition is in full swing. Kerry is a realist but loyalty to ideology and to party/leader overshadows that. The end result he still is rabid about “liberals” and “democrats” and pulls the lever, again, for bush despite 4 years of lies with regard to what he campaigned on 4 years ago.

Fast forward to this past thanksgiving. The realist is starting to return and he has kicked his kool-aid addiction. Even makes the comment that he missed Nixon because even though he was a crook he was less of one. Back was the father I grew up with. Now I am sure he voted for Hillary’s opponent because he would never bring himself to vote for her but the pragmatism was back and he was pissed for being betrayed.

Is it possible pragmatic Republicans have disappeared because pragmatic people have stopped being Republicans?

Yes. Also, 9/11 changed everything, what with the threat of gay Mexican flag-burning terrorists on our borders and all. That’s why we’re fighting them in Iraq!

Damn good analysis. Have long wondered where all the educated, common-sensical, pragmatic Republicans have disappeared to….

John Cole just voted for Byrd for Senator last November. And this time last year, he was still staunchly proud of his ‘04 Bush vote. Is it possible pragmatic Republicans have disappeared because pragmatic people have stopped being Republicans?

I blame Mother Nature. If she hadn’t made breathing an autonomous reflex, these guys would be long dead. They would be too stupid to breathe.