I am worried.
The Rove effect on the Republicans was scary because it was crating a truly dangerous alliance of extremists. Now it looks as if the piper has come to collect his wages. The Republican party is a shambles.
This is not good. Ours IS a two party system and will do best when there is realistic opposition. AS realistic Republicans flee or become Dems (James Webb) there is a real danger of the Replicans sinking to a core that believes the simplistic Rove mantra can not govern.
Fred Thompson is the latest symptom. He is not a bad guy. He is probably more intelligent than lil Bush, but this is faint praise. Thomson is out of his league and probably knows that but sees this as a unique opportunity. Sure he could be another Hary Truman, but the Republican party needs real leaders now, not actors.
The reasons for this need are obvious. Bush is a failure, Rove damaged the party. Second rate pols can not fix this. The party needs a coherent, realistic policy and the ability to push its radiacals to the periphery.
Look around the US for popular, successful Replicans. Romney, S'negger stand out. Why? because they are rational conservatives. As governors they have pursued and achieved real ends not merely huffed and puffed about gays,.commies, and terrorists. Whys is the only credible Reprican Prexy candidate is Romney? Because he has achieved a lot and is not so far to the center of "social issues" to be an outcast in his own party. Romney can not win because he belongs to a large but sect like religion. Mormons are not christians.
It is not as if there were no rational Republicans. I even know some. The GOP needs to seek new leadership built around Whitman, the Bush Is, Schwartznegger. Draft business leaders into politics instead of second rate demaguougues like Rove. Another place to look for rationality is in those who are on the outs from the Bushistas. Several of the attorney general rejects are true heroes.
A good example of the problme is the dialong I have had over at Sound Politics, a pretty centrist Publican site. Here is a bit of the too and fro with the Republican, Nudge, in Red:
He wants me to admit that intelligent design is "rational"
You claim ID, a mere idea that you concede is neither for nor against evolution, "attempts" to undermine evolution. .....You go on to "clarify" (that is, "change") your irrational statements by then implying that your problem is not with ID, but with "people who propose ID as an alternative to evolution." Yet those two are not the same thing. One is an idea, another is a group of people. ...You were not complaining about teaching Creationism in schools, you were complaining about the existence of Creationism. You wanted Creationism itself attacked.
The casuistry is awesome .. ideas are not irrational. The people who own them are, I guess. OK. The disturbing thing is that Nudge does not see how important it it is to sever a wierd religious belief from the solid ideas of traditional Republicanism. What does a belief in fairies have to do with a belief in small government?
Anyhow, I tried (as someone who does care about our country) to point out that antiscientific beliefs hurt our children.'s ability to participate in our global society.
And as to undermining your country's ability to complete ... I call bullshit. There is not one drop of truth to that in any way whatsoever. There is no evidence of any kind to back it up. You are being irrational again, claiming things as fact that you cannot possibly objectively know. I can claim with far more reason that sex education and new math and new history and a lack of discipline and other liberal inventions in our schools have harmed our ability to compete. "Creationism" is way down on the list of things that are hurting us, if it is hurting us at all.
Of course I had not said anything about sex ed etc. But what Nudge is blind to, is the difference between liberal policies (right or wrong) and the irrational belief in facts. He might be surprised but I am fairly only the right when it comes to education reform. Kids raised to equate mythology with science will have huge problmes when they have to make decsions.
And hm, McCain is "usually rational," yet he has a lifetime rating of well over 80 percent from the conservatives. So you are therefore telling me that conservatism is in fact usually rational ... ?
This is exactly the point. McCain has an uphill battle. I have not said that conservatism is irrational. I have said that the irrationality of the Republican party makes it impossible to promote conservative policies.
What this discussion has to do with is your nonsensical bullshit about how only people who agree with you are rational, and everyone else isn't, and then your pathetic attempts to back that bullshit up, while in the process you only proved yourself to be as ignorant as you seemed from the beginning of the thread: not knowing what ID is, conflating ideas with proponents of those ideas, not knowing that other candidates have health care plans and then lying about your lack of knowledge (or knowing that they had them and lying by saying they didn't) ... the list goes on, and you've become tiresome.
Typical. I can smell the lemonade.
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