GOP, How Does This Work?

While I realize that most of the Bush Admin. was Republican, how does it work out for the GOP to play the role as the Party of Torture? How does it work out for that Party to have the figurehead of the news cycle be one of the least popular figures in the public mind, Dick Cheney, snarling and grumping about a popular President making the nation less safe. In fact how does it work to their advantage to have the serial exaggerator of smoking gun mushroom cloud WMD Iraq al Qaida issues make the case that this President is risking our lives? In point of fact, how is it in the interests of the GOP to have someone as physically unappealing and as rhetorically disturbing as Cheney continually lowering the bar for the Republican torture appologists to limbo under? As hard as it may be to believe, this guy's popularity is now lower than it was when he and GeorgeII escaped office.

Americans have shown themselves to be a bit tired of angry fearmongering and disaster portending and ready for some optimism. Not some Americans, a whole lot of them have shown a disinclination to be bullied anymore - especially by Republicans. They'd like to feel good about themselves and their prospects and even their government and what the opposition is treating them to is anger and fear. It is probably fortunate for the future of the nation that the Democrats are frequently their own opposition Party because the (R) version of opposition isn't doing the job.

It isn't my part to offer these people good advice, it would be worth it's price in how much attention they'd pay to it and besides - I think they really suck in this incarnation. I don't care if the Grand Old Party vaporizes itself, a responsible opposition will arise in its place and they deserve that fate. I don't care for Charlie Christ, I've called him an unrepentant liar for the trouble he tried to stir in the Democratic Presidential Primaries - and he was. But he also is their best chance of holding onto Martinez's Senate seat and someone who has shown that he can cooperate with the other Party in the interest of his State's citizens. That instinct could also play out to the interests of his nation's citizens as a Senator, a rather large plus for the Party of Torture. What he's got is a Club For Growth opponent in a Primary he ought to win easily otherwise and he'll emerge with less money and banged up if he manages to win.

They can play at being Theocrats trying to impose their religious order on a nation deeply suspicious of it and Teabagging squeals of imaginary socialism and government intrusion against an Administration trying to shed the Imperial Presidency of their predecessors and their offenses against the Bill of Rights and large chunks of the Constitution. They can do that and please an ever shrinking piece of the electorate - and lose. With the losses will come increasing desperation and lack of credibility and influence. The only aspect of importance in their demise is what happens in the period of their impotence and the rise of a party with actual ideas relevant to the electorate of the US.

I don't care for the version of partisanship that is the victory of my tribe versus theirs, a clan based mindless competition. What they've managed to create is an atmosphere where I whole heartedly advocate the destruction of the stinking dead corpse of their supposed ideology based entirely on their initial, (R). What elements of value they had have either been abandonded or slaughtered by their politicians in the service of fear and greed.