Republican moderates find their (angry) voice: Bush’s sharp right turns get an unhappy reaction
Now, I haven’t done the requisite Googling, but I don’t think the words “Republican moderates” and “revolt” have appeared together in many sentences over the past four years. As the president and their Republican congressional colleagues merrily undermined the New Deal and environmental protections, threatened reproductive rights, and bungled a war about as badly as a war can be bungled, Republican moderates stayed massively mute. That they suddenly regained their voice last week not only attests to the president’s weakness but also calls into question the notion that there’s nothing wrong with the Republicans that rallying their base in a clear ideological conflict won’t fix. That, of course, is the argument that relieved conservatives are advancing now that Bush has nominated Judge Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court. And it couldn’t be further from the truth.
- Harold Meyerson
Y’all can accuse me of finding enjoyment in the suffering of others, and I’d have to plead guilty on that count. Problem is, I’m enjoying watching Our Glorious Leader tank far too much to feel anything close to guilty about it.
It’s been said that what goes around, comes around, and in the case of George W. Bush, few deserve it more, eh? It’s rather late, of course, but it would seem that Americans are finally beginning to see what a lying, smirking murderer they’ve elected twice. Sadly, we’re stuck with him for another 3+ years, so it’s not as if there is anything we can do…short of impeachment- and don’t get me started on that one. Isn’t it interesting, though, that Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for getting his helmet polished by a zaftig intern…and yet the President responsible for lying his way into responsibility for the deaths of 2000 (and counting) young Americans is still treated by Republicans in Congress as if he’s some sort of freakin’ hero? To see the C Student in Chief twisting in the political wind is something I plan on enjoying immensely, because though the man deserves far worse, if this is what I can get, I’ll be sure to thoroughly enjoy it.
Amid all the self-inflicted disasters that befell the Bush White House last week, it was easy to miss the fact that the president had to cave to a group of disgruntled Republicans who had not made trouble for him before.
I don’t mean the conservatives in revolt over Harriet Miers. I mean the moderates in revolt over Bush’s suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act, the law that mandates payment of prevailing wages on federally funded construction projects. In an apparent attempt to ensure that nobody rebuilding the Katrina-damaged Gulf Coast made much more than minimum wage, Bush had suspended the 1931 statute. But last week a group of 35 moderate Republican members of Congress ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ hailing disproportionately from Northeast and Midwest states where unions still have political clout ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ told Andy Card that they couldn’t support Bush’s edict. With a congressional vote on overturning Bush’s order scheduled for next week, the president backed down….
In fact, both the Republican president and the Republican Congress are tanking in the polls because the public understands their ideology all too well. Bush’s approval rating hovers at an anemic 40 percent, and he currently gets good marks from just 35 percent of independents. Up on Capitol Hill, the polls show that congressional Democrats have opened about a 10-point lead over their Republican counterparts in the public’s preference, and that’s not really because of anything ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ except opposing the privatization of Social Security ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ that the Democrats have done.
It would be nice to be able to say that Democrats have finally found their political legs. It would be nice, but it wouldn’t be true. No, the wounds that Our Glorious Leader is suffering from are self-inflicted. If you’re going to use lies and deceptions as means of acheiving desired policy goals, you can’t claim to be surprised when your dishonesty comes back to haunt you. Of course, if one word could be use to accurately sum up this Administration’s modus operandi, it would be hubris. Almost to a man, these maroons still seem to think that they have control of the political agenda in this country.
Then again, when you sleep with the far Right-wing, you can’t claimed to be surprised when they hijack your agenda, eh?
But of course the Republicans are in touch. They’re in touch with Grover Norquist’s weekly conclave of right-wing groups, where all manner of ideological campaigns get hatched. They’re in touch with their think tanks, which spent two decades developing an unworkable plan to privatize Social Security ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ never mind that they finally rolled it out at the very moment that private-sector retirement plans were in collapse. They’re so in touch with their base, Harriet Miers notwithstanding, that nearly everyone outside their base is abandoning them.
Which makes the Republican moderates understandably nervous. Life is unfair, and it’s their seats, more than the more secure ones of their hard-right colleagues, that are being added to the Democrats’ list of districts to contest in next year’s elections. And who knows? Maybe courage, or judgment, is contagious. Having stood up to the president on Davis-Bacon and lived to tell the tale, they might just tell their colleagues who want to cut back on medical assistance to the poor to take a hike. Over in the Senate, they might even reject a Supreme Court nominee who could imperil a woman’s right to reproductive choice. Because one thing is certain: Whatever ails the Republican Party, it’s not that it’s insufficiently right-wing.
Norquist is the maroon whose mantra is that he wants to be able to shrink government so that it will be small enough for him to drag it into the bathrooom and drown it in the tub. Perhaps if rank-and-file (i.e.- “moderate”) Republicans hadn’t ceded control of their party to the Right-wing nutjobs, Our Glorious Leader’s agenda might still have a fighting chance. Live by the sword, die by the sword, eh?
There is still the very real possibility that Our Glorious Leader may yet be able to transform this country into the theocracy he and his cronies seem to want so desperately. He may be down, but he’s certainly not out, though it is becoming increasingly apparent that if his Administration were a boat, all hands would be on deck, bailing furiously. I wonder how many moderate Republicans would be back in the gally, poking holes below the water line?
Before a lot of y’all start feeling good about yourselves, how about y’all keep one little fact in mind? 51% of y’all voted for the Prevaricator in Chief, so before you begin dancing on his political grave, you might want to remember who put him in the White House in the first place.
