Ha! Ha! Ha!
We're going to do it to them again!
We're going to do it to them again!
Posted on 12/24/2011 9:40:04 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
I’ve always been of the opinion that the idea there is such a thing as a Republican “establishment” is something of a myth. The GOP hasn’t really had anything approximating a ruling elite since conservatives nominated Barry Goldwater and booed Nelson Rockefeller off the stage at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco. The idea that Wall Street honchos or intellectuals running national magazines have any power over Republican voters and the party apparatus is based on a misunderstanding of how contemporary American politics works. The only thing that approximates an establishment is the family who produced two U.S. presidents during the course of a 20-year period encompassing the end of the last century and the beginning of the current one: the Bushes.
So the announcement yesterday that the elder George Bush is endorsing Mitt Romney comes as close as anything can to verifying one of the media’s favorite clichés about the Republican establishment’s role in the 2012 race. Given this mythical establishment’s lack of actual power and the resentment that the mere idea of its existence can conjure up among the party’s grass roots, it is doubtful the 41st president’s seal of approval will help Romney all that much. But what the Bush statement does do is make it clear exactly whom the GOP’s royal family doesn’t like: Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.
When President Bush praised Romney as someone who wasn’t a “bomb thrower,” it’s not exactly a secret that he was thinking about Newt Gingrich. Bush and other GOP moderates disdained Gingrich as a radical troublemaker during the Reagan administration and considered his scorched earth tactics as House Minority Leader during the first Bush presidency to be contemptible.
Though Bush also said that he “liked” Rick Perry, the blood feud between the Texas governor and his son’s political camp is also no secret. Had there been any affinity between Perry and the Bushes, the latter might have avoided any endorsements.
It is doubtful any endorsement these days carries all that much weight. Bush 41 had a similar profile to Romney during his political career. Like Romney, Bush came from wealth, flip-flopped on abortion and was unreliable on the key economic issue of his day (substitute his “read my lips” switch on raising taxes for Romneycare). So it’s not likely that Tea Partiers and social conservatives, most of whom never had much use for George W. Bush’s father in the first place, will be swayed by his support for Romney.
But in the context of a crowded GOP field with a gaggle of unsatisfactory candidates vying for the affections of a limited universe of social conservative voters, Romney can survive the unflattering comparison. Yet if Bush 41’s seal of approval does help convince some wavering middle-of-the-road Republicans and moderate conservatives to forget about Gingrich or Perry and go with the more electable Romney, it won’t hurt him.
Some think GHWB is really endorsing Jebbie for 2016, when there may be an open field. All we need is a ninth time for a Bush on a general election ballot, as it would be in TX or a tenth time in FL.
They are going to do it again to us, probably with the consent of our fellow Republicans, who lack understanding.
The other day I stopped in the middle of a conversation with a German neighbor of mine when I realized that he had no idea what I was talking about when I said, "they drank the Kool-Aid." At first I thought it was my awkward German but I soon realized that the disconnect was cultural and not linguistic. He had no idea about the origin of the phrase which has entered the American expression.
"He drank the Kool-Aid," of course, comes from the hundreds of people who drank poison because they had abandoned reason to Jim Jones. The episode is horrifying to contemplate from two perspectives. First the sheer carnage of so many dead from suicide and murder and, second, the sheer abnegation of the human spirit to submit oneself to such evil. There we saw raw psychic power.
But there is something very meaningful to understand from the horror of Jonestown and that is the power of the cult, or the power of submission of the ego to "the other." If we review such famous conversion experiences such as Saul on the road to Damascus, Billy Graham himself, and the entire Awakening Movements such as the one that swept America in colonial days which contributed greatly to the American Revolution, we must concede that these experiences can be powerful and lifelong.
I have long been pondering the power of the cult as an explanation for the draw in the hold which liberalism/communism has on the human spirit. I believe we are touching on a large part of the explanation. This power can either before positive or for evil. Either way it can be profound, we need skilled professional psychologists to extract some teenagers from some cults.
"Once a Marine, always a Marine" has real meaning. The transformation of the psyche is permanent and profound. John McCain claimed such an experience on the floor of his cell near death in the Hanoi Hilton in which he was contemplating death and only called back by a commitment to dedicate his life to his country. I will not substitute cynicism for McCain's account. In George Bush's case, there is no need to engage in skepticism much less cynicism because we have Bush leading an abstemious life since his walk on the beach with Billy Graham. The meeting was profound at least in that sense, he did not drink, and I think, therefore, that I am warranted to say that it was profound in other aspects as well. We have decades long proof.
All that being said, I am careful to distinguish what we want in a president from what we want in a preacher. That is why I am able now to support Newt Gingrich and that support is not entirely dependent on the validity of his repentance and conversion. Above all, I want a president with good moral character but I also want an effective politician, a patriot, and, of course, a conservative. I think Bush permitted his religion to interfere with his judgment as president to the detriment of the country. I do not excuse his missteps by reference to his religion, I simply offer that as the best explanation I can find for his behavior in office which makes a consistent explanation for every complaint which we conservatives have, many of which I listed in my reply.
By the way, I am grateful that you persevered and read through the whole of it.
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