As told by David Ignatius.
The Bush political operatives have become the people the Republicans once warned the country against — a club of insiders who seem to think that they’re better than other folks. They are so contemptuous of government and the public servants who populate it that they have been unable to govern effectively. They are a smug, inward-looking elite that thinks it knows who the good guys are by the political labels they wear.
This contempt has been evident in many of the administration’s failures. The disastrous incompetence of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 flowed from its status as a clubhouse for ambitious conservatives eager to punch a political ticket in a country they knew nothing about. The political purges that enfeebled the CIA in 2005 were the work of a conservative former member of Congress, Porter Goss, and a coterie of political aides he brought from Capitol Hill who thought they knew more about intelligence than career professionals. The administration’s signature failure, its bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, was the work of a right-wing political appointee who knew almost nothing about disaster management and who scorned many of the bureaucrats who worked for him.
Here is the primary defect of movement conservatives – people who care more about the ideological flavor of a work product than its quality will do a crappy job. The problem extends beyond neutral jobs like dealing with hurricanes to preferred policies like rebuilding the middle east or rewriting the entitlement code. Read Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s reporting from Iraq to get a sense of how, even for the most important initiative in the entire Republican agenda, competence always loses to ideological purity.
Frankly, if I supported rightwing politics I would probably despise them even more. At least for libs like me the grand crash-and-burn of movement conservatism has an upside.
Tom Hilton
It’s worse than that: for people who are ideologically hostile to government, government failure isn’t a bug–it’s a feature. Government screws up? Well, that just shows that you can’t trust government!
I knew back in 1994 that the Republican party would come to this–not because I was prescient but because it was painfully frickin’ obvious that putting government in the hands of people who are ideologically hostile to government can’t possibly result in anything other than incompetence and corruption.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
All those burueacracies like the CIA are just filled with people like Ray Nagin. People who couldn’t even run a bus schedule.
At least our ideological flavors are pure – our party, our country, right or wrong.
You keep cheering for the losing team, it’s who you are.
ATLLIBERAL
This is what happens when you elect people to run the government who dont believe that government can do ANYTHING right.
They get into office and “prove” it.
We have seen the disastrous results of it in many ways over the last 6 years.
neil
even in the most important initiative in the entire Republican agenda, competence always loses to ideological purity.
I think you misspelled ‘especially’.
Jake
Have become? Did I miss the 15 seconds when they weren’t like this?
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
At least Bush doesn’t have to create a Gulf of Tonkin like LBJ did:
Iran captures British sailors
numbskull
Well, I guess that’s another pile of crap that Toney Blare will have to deal with.
Us, not so much. We’ve already got our hands full stepping on our dicks in Iraq.
28 Percent
You do not know anything no matter how bad you say they are you cannot admit that Al “you give me fever” Gore or John “Bleeding Purple Heart” Kerry would have been worse because all you can do is HATE. I bet even if Bush had not done these things you would still criticize you even criticize when people just talk about Hitlery’s hair so you see both sides do it. It is a shame that you always find something to complain about and cannot just love this GREAT COUNTRY!!!
Mike P
Alan Wolfe’s article in the July/August 2006 issue of the Washington Monthly, “Why Conservatives Can’t Govern”, is one of the better rundowns of the Tim F theory I’ve seen.
You can find it here:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html
Lee
This
Bolton’s interview with Jon Stewart makes perfect sense keeping this in mind.
Cyrus
Hmmm. He doesn’t swear like Darrell, but for some reason, I think he’s genuine. It’s so incoherent that if it’s a spoof, I think it’s a bad one. Besides, this is a new guy around here, right?
Has anyone seen BIRDZILLA lately? Mr. 28 Percent is a little more talkative than he was, but other than that, it seems very familiar.
Dulcie
Looks like 28 Percent is the new BIRDZILLA
Zifnab
You’re not really BIRDZILLA until you spell your name in all caps.
Frankly, this could be said for any ideological movement. You think Communism failed because the idea of ten people working a farm instead of three is a disfunctional idea? You think the British Empire crumbled because monarchies just don’t work? Or take Rome – as everyone else does – and analyze it to death. Nothing kills a political system like loyalty to the party/ideology/king/whatever being held above doing a good job.
The true tragedy of the Republican Party is that the Republicans who could govern well were run out off office by the Republicans who just sold out. One of the beauties of a welfare state is that at least you’re encouraged to make a good welfare system. An anti-welfare state just seems to encourage ripping off training wheels and stopping up safety valves without really asking why these regulations and controls are in place. Basically, you have one party that wants governmental control and another that wants corporate anarchy. Surprise, surprise, the party of corporate anarchy isn’t very good at handling government controls.
chopper
can i buy some pot from you?
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
Any great nation, like any great man, can handle two at a time.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
So you moonbats just institutionalize always doing a crappy job and holding that up as the benchmark. Sure the other side screws up, but you all have lowered the bar so much there’s not much to work with. At least the other side is trying other ideas, and just rearranging the deckchairs on the quaqmire of public education, welfare, etc.
Fruitbat Jones
Lots of great men in Key West.
Tom Hilton
Indeed. Your ability to HATE and apply trite and unimaginative nicknames makes you inherently superior.
28 Percent
You cannot meet my arguments so you use ad hominem. How sad and typical. You have no respect for AMERICAS glonous history and cultual.
Ted
What’s a cultual?
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
A fine country on the frontline against communofascism.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
Ted, meet teh Google. Google, meet Ted:
It isn’t so hard to look up
Punchy
OT–Mizz’ippi
No one can accuse Mississippi legislators of NOT knowing their constituents. Seriously, when can we just give Mississippi and their collective 3 teeth to China for payment on our debt?
Doubting Thomas
That’s funny! There is actually a definition for “cultual” online! Of course, in the link’s example of usage it seems to be an adjective, but 28% uses it as a noun.
I’m sure someone here can come up with a wonderful (or at least snarky) definition of “cultual” as a noun.
mrmobi
Ok, I’m with you, Ted. Culture is the proper spelling. I believe that is proved out by the word glonous, which, if I’m interpreting newspeak correctly, means glorious.
I think that 28 Percent just proved that maxim about 1,000 monkeys typing, etc.
28 Percent, you are sounding more and more like an inhabitant of the movie “Idiocracy.”
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
Look, it’s simple. If God didn’t want kinfolk hookin up, why did he design it so they could?
Mike S
Oh man, check out the latest from the Redstate braintrust.
If there was ever a need for a new “cult awareness network” Redstate is it. Maybe someone can get the Church if Scientology” to give back the name.
Punchy
That’s the best they can do? “haystack”?? What the hell does it even mean?
It’s clear now why John “Dont call me U.S.S.” Cole left Redstate. They write like retards. And I think that may slander retards.
Zifnab
Yeah. Red State takes on the governator. This I want to see. The biggest joke in that post is the fact that RSers still consider themselves relevant.
Mike S
It’s by one of their brightest lights, Haystack. And yes, he is one of their brightest lights.
jenniebee
I like this part best:
It’s amazing – one grasps instantly what he’s trying to say, but the words themselves mean nothing of the sort. Curious.
Mike S
Sorry, I always forget the link.
Bubblegum Tate
Well, according to Mike S, it’s the nom de plume of the writer of that particular piece of drivel. As for me, the only way I’ve heard it used besides as a reference to a big pile of hay is as a nickname for an overweight redneck.
Richard 23
Of course! It was all the Bush Administration’s fault and not the state and local government. I understand now. It’s all so clear!
Sadly, the great Dem Governor Kathleen Blanco has apparently decided to quit while she’s ahead, fresh off her Katrina success, and spend more time with her family:
Nice for her that she’s still got $3 million in her campaign warchest and nothing to spend it on. Maybe she can stash some of it in Jefferson’s freezer.
I guess it’s all Bush’s fault that Louisiana had an incompetent Governor and New Orleans had a brainless mayor. All part of that vast right wing conspiracy, eh moonbats?
Dishonesty: you’re soaking in it.
RSA
Maybe they could be a pilot.
Mike S
Richard 23 is obviously in desperate need of the Cult Awareness Network.
Richard 23
I am perfectly aware of the Democrat party cult and the nutroots cult and the Kos Thrill Kill Kult (“screw them”), Mike S.
Mike S
Ahh, now I see. One of the reasons I stopped reading John and Tim’s site as much is because I got sick of the spoofers.
Bubblegum Tate
PotD
BARRASSO
I tire of the spoofing myself, if you can’t add to the conversation at least don’t detract from it.
Punchy
??? Please explain.
haystacks calhoun
them’s fightin’ words!
hey now, my sister is quite exceptional. put her in thar, too! or ah’ll put you in a figure 4.
Andrew
There are plenty of ‘tards out there living really kick ass lives.
plum
Sure, Ignatius nailed the contempt the Bushies have for civil service, but this part (about the US Attorney firings) grated:
jenniebee
I don’t really see how general concurrence is “contributing” to the conversation any more than disagreement is “detracting” from it. That governmental response to Katrina was, from start to finish, top to bottom a complete and utter cock-up is a hard thing to dispute; the idea that Louisianna might have more than its share of bottom-feeding, wholly corrupt politicians is hardly farfetched. Pointing out that Blanco and Nagin were ineffectual isn’t to say that Bush was anything short of horrible, so why fight over Blanco and Nagin?
Also, Richard 23, I love your work. Kudos. Big fan.
numbskull
A problem with Ignatius’ op-ed is that he buys into the Kinsley/Brooks “I was born yesterday” take on the USA firing – that it’s all OK because they serve at the pleasure of the president.
Just how much has to be spelled out before these guys understand that nobody is arguing that point? The point is: Did the president obstruct justice by firing some of these USAs? We they fired specifically because they were investigating Republicans? Were they fired specifically because they declined to persue Democrats once initial investigation showed that there was no reason to move forward with those cases?
Of course, those two questions beg the question: Were the other 95 NOT fired because they were willing to play ball?
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
Punchy, lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Richard 23
Thank you very much. And you make a good point in your comment that I won’t try to dispute. There’s plenty of blame to go around. It’s still an absolute disaster down there.
For every vocal John S, there are dozens of quiet lurking jenniebees. I’m glad that at least one of the jenniebees (perhaps even the original one) has spoken up.
Richard 23
Mike S, not John S.
::sobs::
tBone
Don’t let the haters get you down, R23. The Kool-Aid Drinking Kos Kidz Klan hates it when a bright, articulate conservative such as yourself reveals their groupthink echochamber whack-a-thon as the flimsy (& sticky) house of cards that it really is. They have no choice but to resort to personal attacks. It’s just who these leftards really are.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
tBone,
It says on your chart you’re fucked up, you talk like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded.
Bubblegum Tate
‘Sup, esse? Basically, what I do is…like…ya know….
chopper
you know he didn’t say it was all the bush admin’s fault. he said that the administration’s response to katrina was it’s biggest blunder, not that the state and local gov’ts are blameless.
your spoofing kinda sucks. at least darrell doesn’t let himself (herself? hmmm) make such obvious errors.
chopper
i’m still trying to convince my brother-in-law, who’s starting his residency this summer, to use that line on someone.
Ted
Actually, I think the Arnold the RedStater was referring to was Benedict. Yes. If you vote for a bill to end another Vietnam, you’re Benedict Arnold.
MikeF
You obviously have Bush and Rove well in hand there, so I will leave you alone. Don’t forget to swallow….
Krista
I don’t know why, but that just tickles me.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
MikeF? Who the f* is that? Another jeeniebelle?
I hate these iterant posters. They’re like migrants. You never know when they’re going to get shipped back and show up at the worst time.
Not that I don’t treat them well. It’s just when I drive up at the corner and Jose ain’t there, I’m like f*! I gots to train a new guy.
norbizness
Man, I CANNOT concentrate with Rudy on the left sidebar.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
Man, that’s nuts. I get an Irish Spring ad.
And I can tell you, Rudy ain’t no mic.
MikeF
I have been here quite a while. Longer than I have seen your obviously carefully chosen moniker.
Punchy
Gonzo’s in more trouble. Seems like his lies can now be proven. Will be good comedy to see how the WH spins this.
tBone
Go away. ‘Batin.
Richard 23
Tell me about it. Fruity Rudy must go.
Darrell, D'Souza, DeLay and Strauss
Well, that would be about today.
Andrew
I don’t really think we have time for a handjob.
Pb
This is just more proof of how ignorant, shallow, and disgustingly partisan the Red State crowd is–that they’d say this, and that they haven’t noticed until now. Of course, they weren’t complaining when Walter Jones came up with “freedom fries”, or when Wayne Gilchrest served in Vietnam. Both men supported the war in Iraq, and both men have long since turned against it–maybe it helps that they actually go to the funerals, and talk to the parents and loved ones of our dead soldiers. But at Red State, principled Republicans are traitors to their country if they vote their conscience and don’t toe the line on Iraq. Uh-huh. Keep it up, guys, let’s see how many seats that idiocy buys you.
lard lad
Jesus creeping Christ on a cross.
If you thought the shenanigans at Walter Reed were the worst that this clown-car administration had to dish out to our troops, then you are tragically mistaken.
Read this — then try to keep your head from exploding in rage.
The gist:
Get this — not only did the Army rook this combat-wounded vet out of his benefits, they also hit him with a bill for nearly four thousand bucks.
I can’t summon up sarcasm scathing enough to do justice to the villainy at play here. Suffice to say that hell doesn’t go deep enough to house the moral shitbuckets who coined this policy and now cheerfully inflict it on our damaged veterans. To save money.
God damn them. God damn them all.
RSA
This is a bit late for an explanation, but for what it’s worth. . .
Andrew
A better explanation.
Lit3Bolt
It’s for things like lard lad brought up the world should be thankful for the fact that I don’t have to ability to summon razor-penis demons from the 9th circle of hell to rape those responsible for such a travesty of justice. On National TV, no less.
[sex] these unjust sheep. [sex] them and their [stool]-brained policies forever.