Category: GOP

A GOP Blood Feud.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, Democrats abused their majority status at about a level 5 or 6,”[conservative think tank AEI’s Norman] Ornstein observed. “Republicans today have moved it to about an 11.” Salon delves into the growing rift between Tom DeLay and Dick Armey over conservative politics and principles. Hmmm…Mordor orcs or Isengard orcs, take your pick.

Wobbly Leadership.


So apparently Dubya handles a bike about as well as he handles a Segway (or the nation)…poorly. Well, at least one benefit of this nasty scrape for the viewing public is that, when Bush addresses the nation on Iraq tonight, you’ll literally get to see the blood on his hands.

Lie down with dogs…

wake up with fleas. The US raided the compound of Ahmed Chalabi this morning, who up until this week was receiving $340,000 a month in taxpayer funds for spouting exactly the lies the Bushies wanted most to hear. In fact, Chalabi has been the Dubya gang’s favorite Iraqi for years now, but “U.S. disenchantment with Chalabi has been growing since it dawned on the White House and the Pentagon that everything he had told them about Iraq — from Saddam Hussein’s fiendish weapons arsenal to the crowds who would toss flowers at the invaders to Chalabi’s own popularity in Iraq — had been completely false.” Is Wolfowitz’s house next?

Falling from the Faith.

As Dubya tries to rally the worried Republican troops, Speaker Hastert questions John McCain’s GOP cred. Hey, if you don’t want him, we’ll take him. Didn’t you guys learn anything from the Jim Jeffords defection?

(Unfortunately Not) Left Behind.

“The problem is not that George W. Bush is discussing policy with people who press right-wing solutions to achieve peace in the Middle East, or with devout Christians. It is that he is discussing policy with Christians who might not care about peace at all – at least until the rapture.” Rick Perlstein uncovers the Bush administration’s recent meetings with Apocalyptic Christian zealots to discuss shifts in Israel policy.

Geneva Schmeneva.

Jan 25, 2002: “‘As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war,’ Gonzales wrote to Bush. ‘The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians.’ Gonzales concluded in stark terms: ‘In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.’ Dismissing the Geneva Conventions, two full years before the atrocities at Abu Ghreib? That giant sucking sound you hear is the void left by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales’s incredible imploding Supreme Court bid. He’s probably got less chance now than Ken Starr of taking the nation’s highest bench, and for good reason.

Shoot the Messenger.

Earth to Inhofe? Earth to Inhofe? Nope, no answer. While several GOP leaders are turning on Dubya (and Rumsfeld) after recent events, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) is not among them. To the contrary, he lost it in committee today, proclaiming that he is “probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment” of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. (For their part, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) disavowed Inhofe immediately.) One would be tempted to write Inhofe off as simply a crank, until you peruse the many similar responses emanating from the Right about the relative newsworthiness of US soldiers engaging in torture and assorted other depravities. Mind you, these are the exact same Defenders of American Values who wore moral outrage like a cheap cologne all through l’affaire Lewinsky…some people have no shame. Update: Sure enough, the Right rallies around Inhofe.

Ring around the Rummy.

With Rummy on the ropes, Dubya and Cheney rush to the defense of their man in Defense. Hey, hold him to your breast as long as possible, Mr. President…maybe then, you’ll all go down together come November.