QOTD
By Mona
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Bush was really not much of a Republican at all – more like a retarded Christian AA version of Woodrow Wilson. He spent like crazy and he got America involved in these crazy “let’s export the wonderfulness of us†adventures.
(And I so, so totally agree with him that Vince D’Onofrio congenitally overacts, and is thus so annoying I can barely stand to watch anything he is in, including his Law and Order shtick.)
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
June 24, 2007 @ 10:58 am
Of course Bush wasn’t much of a Republican – which is why he’s received such harsh criticism from other Republicans.
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I keep wondering when people are going to wise up and realize that Republicans aren’t against government spending, they’re just against Democratic (and often, democratic) government spending.
Comment by Mona —
June 24, 2007 @ 11:32 am
Believe, me, I understand your point and largely share that view. But there always have been Republicans aghast at the mutation of the Party into what it has culminated in with W. I’ve linked to many of them, like Bruce Bartlett of Bruce Fein, and in the past few years even George Will has been scathing.
Comment by sglover —
June 24, 2007 @ 4:10 pm
I always figured that the taxpayer-financed Texas baseball stadium deal cemented Bush’s Republican credentials myself. Everyone loves “innovative public/private partnerships”, right?
(Not that Dems are strangers to this, of course.)
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
June 24, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
I dunno about this “mutation” thing, Mona. The Republican party has been racist, misogynist, and beholden to corporatists and anti-scientific religious nuts since at least the 70s. I don’t see much in the way of mutation from where I sit. Unless an alternate spelling of “mutation” is “culmination.”
Comment by ajay —
June 25, 2007 @ 3:58 am
Actually, G, I don’t think there’s much evidence that W is a racist. He’s appointed senior black and Latino staff members, and most people who’ve talked to him seem to think he’s personally OK with people of different colours.
So, yes, he’s not really a Republican at all.
Comment by jlw —
June 25, 2007 @ 10:35 am
If by “Not a Republican” one means not a member of the Main Street, Midwestern, moderate-conservative political party of Eisenhower and Ford, then sure, Bush isn’t a Republican. But then, there aren’t any Republicans in Washington, by that definition.
I stopped thinking of myself as a Republican during the Reagan years, when I looked at not just the direction the party was going in but who was driving the car. The Southern strategy was bringing in people who had no problem with corruption and pork barrel spending–the “fat” in fat Soutern sherrif–and all the distortions and bad government that entails.
For the sake of power, the Republican Party accepted all that was bad about the old Southern wing of the Democratic Party without the animating principle that at least some good ought to emerge from the mess. Those people run the show now. If you have another definition of the Republican Party, then you need to look a bit more closely at reality.
Comment by Derek Copold —
June 25, 2007 @ 12:07 pm
But there always have been Republicans aghast at the mutation of the Party into what it has culminated in with W. I’ve linked to many of them, like Bruce Bartlett of Bruce Fein, and in the past few years even George Will has been scathing.
Those sods only turned “aghast” when the ship started undeniably sinking. Before that, they were happily anthametzing antiwar conservatives like myself as being “unpatriotic.”
Comment by Barry —
June 25, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
Seconding Derek – the difference was that, back when Bush & Co. were riding high, the critics were a few marginalized guys who didn’t know how to keep shut about such ‘facts of life’.
After Bush became a political loser, threatening the dominance of the GOP, a whole bunch of people caught a gasping, shocked case of ‘Bush isn’t a Republican!’.
Comment by Karl —
June 27, 2007 @ 6:10 pm
Agree with article that
Bush is like Woodrow Wilson.
Have often thought that W. stood for Woodrow Wilson.
Agree with ajay that whatever his other faults, Bush is not a racist.
Comment by William —
June 27, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
He spent like crazy and he got America involved in these crazy “let’s export the wonderfulness of us†adventures.
Now, this is unfair to Wilson, at least outside the Western hemisphere. Wilson got rolled at Versailles because he was too committed to the power of international institutions to limit the ability of individual states to do harm — he thought the League of Nations would ultimately do so much good that it was worth making any concession in the short term to get it set up. That’s entirely the opposite of the Bush (and current Republican) attitude, which is all about destroying long-term credibility in favour of short-term gratification.