How the Republicans got Snookered

It’s very sad to see how the party of Ike, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, the party of little government, got taken in by the neoconservatives. It’s really poignant because I don’t even blame the likes of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld or George W. Bush. (I do, but for the purpose of entertaining you, you’ll have to bear with me.)

A couple of postings ago, I talked about the influence of Machiavelli on our founders and how old Nick’s ideas were incorporated into our constitution. Students of republics, like Nick, saw that a major flaw in republican government is that factionalism, even during times of war, prevented such states from acting effectively in their own defense. I opined – and not being a real scholar - can only assume that I wasn’t the first - that our most brilliant founders such as Jefferson, Madison, Jay and Hamilton took the views of the author of The Prince into account when they drafted the role of our chief executive.

Having drifted from the liberalism of my youth to the moderate conservatism of my middle years, I was becoming an advocate of the `that government governs best which governs least’ crowd. Of course, I had to do the requisite mental gymnastics to get past the buying of loyalty by Reagan and Bush 41 as the federal budget became the ATM machine of powerful congressmen and the military industrial complex.

The story of how the neoconservatives - and others not relevant to this posting - bucked up the federal government in the years following the debacle of Vietnam and who found in The Gipper the perfect man to represent their philosophy of over the top hubris and world hegemony has been expressed many times by me and dozens of others.

The neocon philosophy melded perfectly with the deficiencies and weaknesses noted in our system of government by the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney when they saw power flow from the executive to the legislature when Dick Nixon drowned in the tsunami of 1974. So, as a philosophy of power prescribed by the founders for times of true crisis was seen by those who saw a classic imbalance in the powers of the presidency and the legislative branches, there came a confluence of actors and events that has come to lay low the Grand Old Party.

Until 9/11, Cheney, Rummy and like minded malcontents who failed to recognize that the wisdom of the founders in permitting the likes of Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Wilson to assume the great and very awesome and fearful powers of the Machiavellian inspired powerhouse of a chief during only in times of very real crises of near total war had to squirm in their seats as uppity congressional members whipped the men – and women – of Tricky Dick and later presidents like so many whipped dogs.

But – to call upon another member of the permanently disgraced who cannot be asked for assistance in governing – the neoconservatives saw a Rasputin like opening and they drove through it. While the first reaction of most Americans to 9/11 was righteous anger towards al Qaeda, the Taliban in Afghanistan and toward other terrorist organizations, especially of radical Islamic origin, the neocons saw an opportunity to solve a whole host of power imbalances all at once, and they were as quick as a mad monk to whisper into the eager ears of those in power.

It was time to attack Iraq. Look what this could accomplish: teach more powerful members of the Axis of Evil that the U.S. and George W. Bush were not to be trifled with; demonstrate that we could topple any tyrant who threatened us or our allies; demonstrate far better than the rural and mountainous backwater of Afghanistan the fighting ability of U.S. forces; AND MOST IMPORTANT, TO CREATE A FALSE PREMISE FOR SEIZING THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS RESERVED FOR PRESIDENTS IN TIMES OF TRUE NATIONAL CRISES.

Thus, sadly, did the dimwits and innocents who called themselves Republicans get caught up in the martial airs of Hail to the Chief and sell out their true beliefs of limited government, avoidance of foreign entanglements, and tightwad spending, and become champions of a hubris that ranks with Rome, Napoleon, and nineteenth century England, with the notion of building bridges to nowhere and to centralizing power that would make our greatest war time leaders blanch.

Now our dear friends – innocent, decent, warm and fuzzy cloth coat Republicans worthy of Cal Coolidge and Ike – face being turned out of power for a generation because they were led down the – dare I say – the primrose path by these neoconservatives. Sad, but their wrath should not be directed solely upon the cynical neocons but rather on Dubya, Dick and Darth who should have known better.

Now the innocents circle like so many retarded musk ox before modern weapons to defend leaders they now see through. If they really believed in Republican and conservative principles, they’d be the ones calling for impeachment instead of avoiding a debate on Iraq.

Never mind, it will all turn out well. They’ll pass this fiasco off to the next crowd and the nation will survive, and they’ll have thirty years to lick their wounds and think about their folly. Well they can say to historians with honest hearts that they impeached a president, the wrong one, but they did it.

Blog on!

Wild Bill