The Republican Party has become a major security threat to the American nation!

At last someone is speaking the truth! This is from Steve Benen this morning. He very accurately entitles it ‘A self-inflicted wound of monumental stupidity’.

Here’s Time’s Joe Klein yesterday, before last night’s breakdown in the House.

[S]o, here we are. Our nation’s economy and international reputation as the world’s presiding grownup has already been badly damaged. It is a self-inflicted wound of monumental stupidity. I am usually willing to acknowledge that Democrats can be as silly, and hidebound, as Republicans-but not this time. There is zero equivalence here. The vast majority of Democrats have been more than reasonable, more than willing to accept cuts in some of their most valued programs. […]

The Republicans have been willing to concede nothing. Their stand means higher interest rates, fewer jobs created and more destroyed, a general weakening of this country’s standing in the world. Osama bin Laden, if he were still alive, could not have come up with a more clever strategy for strangling our nation.

That last line was of particular interest, because it echoes a recent point from Nick Kristof. Indeed, the NYT columnist recently argued that Republicans represent a kind of domestic threat, possibly undermining the nation’s interests from within: “[L]et’s remember not only the national security risks posed by Iran and Al Qaeda. Let’s also focus on the risks, however unintentional, from domestic zealots.”

The Republican Party has been taken over by insane "tea party members" and is run by wealthy self-centered greedheads. Top examples of the leading greedheads are the Koch brothers and their puppet, Grover Norquist. These people, practicing their "Starve the beast" strategy to destroy the American government and the middle class, are far and away more dangerous to America than is al Qaeda.

After WW II the Allies declared the Nazi Party a criminal organization, one in which membership was proof that a person was a criminal. The same decision should now be made for all active members of the Republican Party. They are criminals and traitors to America!

Where is the national Democratic Party when it is needed to battle national Republican overreach?

Those of us who feel that the national Democratic Party seems unled and unmanaged in the face of the massive Republican attacks on the government and on unions probably have good reason to feel that way. We may have felt that with a Democratic President there should be some Democratic (if not progressive) push-back to the current Republican overreach at a national level. The New York Time has a good article today on the new management process in the White House since Rham Emmanuel and David Alexrod have been replaced by William M. Daley and Jay Carney. There's a lot interesting in the article about the different type of management style the White House feels in currently required, but the following provides a reason for me to feel the national Democratic Party is unled.

Frustrated Democratic lawmakers and interest groups have been railing to White House aides that Mr. Obama is forfeiting opportunities to draw the public’s attention to what the Republicans’ cuts would mean for programs popular with most voters, including the coveted independents. The aides respond that the time will come for Mr. Obama to join the attack, should Republicans press their agenda and refuse to compromise.

“One of the lessons of the last two years is that if the president weighs in all the time, it’s less impactful,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who remains as the communications director. “But if he weighs in at a moment of his choosing when the public is paying attention, it will be more influential.”

Similarly, the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.

It is clear that the Obama White House sees its job as reelecting Obama in 2012, not leading the national democratic party -- and definitely not leading a progressive counterrevolution against the massive Republican overreach that is currently going on. The may be right to believe that.

The problem is that the White House squashed efforts by the DNC to join the fray. The White House sees the DNC as an institution that belongs to them to be used for Obama's reelection. The problem is, this leaves the Democratic Party with NO institutions that have the job of coordinating the national party in the clearly needed national response to the present current attacks on America and its workers.

This is a big problem. The Republicans seem to have national party coordinating institutions, the Democrats do not. An organized and led organization will almost always defeat a larger but unled force. I see no immediate solution to it.

This is the American Republican Party at work

America is under attack by an internal enemy as great as the slave-supporting antebellum South. The enemy is the conservative-run Republican Party. How bad are they?

Six decades ago America fought and defeated a great external enemy, the German Nazi empire. The Nazi Party had fielded it's own Party army, the Waffen SS. This is an organization that committed major war crimes intended to destroy those the party declared its enemies. This year in America the Republican Congressional leadership has been running a man for Congress from the Ohio 9th Congressional District, Rich Iott, who celebrates the exploits of the Nazi Waffen SS.

It should be recalled that after WW II the German SS was declared a criminal organization. That means that anyone who was a member of that organization was declared a criminal. The evidence of their crime was membership in the SS. That precedent should be applied to the conservative Republican Party. Anyone who is a member should automatically be declared a criminal and a threat to America. They are directly involved in a conspiracy to destroy or take over America.

Does the evidence from one Republican Congressional candidate apply to the entire Republican party? He was actively recruited and strongly supported by the Republican Congressional leadership. On a broader front, though, consider how the party itself is attacking America directly. This is from Steven Benen at Washington Monthly:

Every measure that's come up over the last 21 months that could help create jobs has been fought, watered down, and sometimes killed by Republicans ... who in turn believe the weak job landscape, which they created in the first place, is Democrats' fault. And Americans, feeling pain and anxiety, actually seem inclined to believe them.

The Republican Party and its financiers on Wall Street created the current Great Recession which, had Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson not panicked and instituted a recovery plan at the last minute, nearly threw the world into the Second Great Depression. The threatened Great Depression would have been at least as bad as that of the 1930's. As it is the Great Recession we did get is the worst since the 1930's.

And what has the Republican Party done to help America recover from the economic depredations of the Bush administration? They have actively fought every effort to reduce the damage of the economic conditions and have tried to intensify them. The purpose of their destructive efforts is to induce the voters to vote them back into office where they can continue to steal from government the way Jack Abramoff and his buddies did.

The modern Republican Party has become a criminal enterprise which dwarfs the Mafia in both scope and the damage it has caused. When do Americans deal properly with the criminal threat which is the modern Republican Party?

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Addendum 12:19pm CDT
Here is further history of the American right wingers and their love of Nazism: GOP house candidate was Nazi re-enactor before the whole "liberal fascism" makeover thing by Paul Rosenberg at Open Left.

Wait for the screaming from the right wingers as they object to being exposed for the fascists they are. 5..4..3..2....

The GOP may be screwing themselves

Digby points out that the Republicans have taken a real stonewall position in any and every possible health care bill. Even a proposal that would require everyone to buy insurance (a universal mandate) and be a real bonus for the health insurance companies is off the table.

The three groups involved in the healthcare debate are the progressive Democrats (the largest group but not a majority) the republicans (the minority party and shrinking as their positions get crazier and less popular) and the centrist Democrats (Digby calls them the "sell-outs") who hold the deciding role in the mess. The Republicans could get the crappy pro-business bill with the help of the centrist Democrats and the Democrats would have to get that bill if it is all the centrist Blue Dogs would go for. But the Republicans refuse to give the Blue Dogs any support for that pro-insurance bill. The Democrats from conservative districts and states are targeted no matter what they do. Those center-right districts and states are the Republican Party's only possible route back to majority party status.

Digby suggests that this will be the margin that forced the Democratic Party to pass a real health care reform bill that actually does address America's health care problems, but it'll only happen if the Republicans continue to stonewall the centrist Democrats. Here's Digby's description of the situation:

The sell-outs are almost begging the Republicans to help them pass the terrible, insurance company giveaway bill they want so badly --- and the Republicans just won't cooperate. They are making the Democrats go this alone, which is the last thing they want to do because they [The sell-outs] have to face their own voters after passing something that won't work --- and now they know the Republicans will kill them no matter what they do. They have nowhere to hide.

An intriguing scenario. The Republicans could weaken the Democrats by getting them to pass the insurance company's bill, but they put a higher priority on winning back the more conservative districts and states they have lost to the Democrats, especially in the last two elections. There are two factors which I think account for most of that. First, I'd guess that the Republicans who are left in Congress all represent strongly gerrymandered Congressional districts or come from states dominated by social conservatives, so that if they want to keep their elected positions, they have to toe the radical right-wing line. If they don't, then Limbaugh and the other right-wing talk-radio hosts will gang up on them along with Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform will come down on them with both feet. So the Republicans in office do not dare to provide any room for the "blue dog" centrist Democrats.

The other factor is that most of the conservatives in office today are the true-believers who seriously believe that America is a right-wing nation, and they have just had a string of bad elections recently. If that's true, then the conservative states and districts are ripe to be retaken by the Republicans. All they have to do is overcome the liberal brainwashing of the electorate which has resulted in so many voters blaming Republican policies and the Bush administration for the current Recession (and near-Depression.) along with countering the Democratic actions with organizations like ACORN to steal elections. Those who thoroughly buy into the right-wing culture and world view really can't accept that America isn't truly a center-right nation at heart.

If Digby's scenario is accurate at all, that would be the reason why. As I said - an intriguing scenario.

The fingerprints on the Republican "death panel" fear tactic

The Republicans are in an all-out battle to prevent the Democrats from passing health care reform, and since they have no rational reasons for opposing it, they are spreading as much fear as the media will bear. The most recent is the line that the health care reform includes what they call "death panels." Talking Points Memo traces the development of that meme in the media.

Notice that it starts with a lie told by the whacked out loon Betsy McCaughey. Then it is picked up by House Minority Leader John Boehner. Then Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) presented the meme on the House floor. Then Sarah Palin posted the idea on her Facebook page and spread the label "death panel." Then Newt Gingrich appeared on ABC's "This Week" and pushed the meme even further.

Next Senator Johnny Isakson reversed his previous position on end of life counselling and put out a statement distancing himself from it. Sen. Grassley (R-IA) worked to spread teh fear when he told a Republican town hall crowd, "You have every right to fear....a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on Grandma." This was the same day RNC Chairman Michael Steele told Neil Cavuto that panels were going to be imposed to make life-and-death decisions. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) added to the story with more of the "pull the plug on grandma" rhetoric to a local Oklahoma TV station.

Of course, nothing the Republicans lie about is complete unless Rush Limbaugh bloviates about it. He has been all over the "death panels" fear-mongering. Rep. Broun (R-GA) who is also an MD sent a letter to the American Conservative Union making the statement which he cannot support: "When mama falls and breaks her hip, she'll just lie in her bed in pain until she dies with pneumonia because her needed surgery is not cost efficient."

John McCain must have been concerned that he was being left out, because he rather belatedly echoed the by now full-throated Republican fear-mongering lie. So did the NRO writer Jonah Goldberg.

Several common things run through this. First, this is fact-free fear-mongering spread throught the mass media. Second, the Republican Party is pushing it. They completely avoid talking about the problems Americans have with the failed health care system, and they offer no solutions. This is pure obstructionism.

Steve Benen explains what happens next.

The right's "death panel" attack was thoroughly and completely debunked. It didn't matter -- lots of Americans believed the lie anyway. It has, however, started to lose some of its salience, which means it's time for the new health care reform lie.

Republicans - the Party of "Just Say No!"

The Republican Party is and will remain
the Party of "Just Say No!"

For all the economic and international problems the Republicans have created, you'd think they would be embarrassed and try to fix the two wars and the near approach to Great Depression II which has left us still in the worst recession since Great Depression I. But no, they don't want to solve problems for the American people. This is what they want. Rep. Shimpkus says it and emphasizes what he says so that we cannot misunderstand him.



Source
YouTube

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As an example of the Republican "Just Say No!" principle, here is Sen. Baucus on The GOP leadership view about health care reform:

"he also admitted that the GOP leadership is putting “intense political pressure” on his committee colleagues Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley, and Mike Enzi to defeat any health care bill:

“The Republican leadership in the Senate and in the House is doing its utmost to kill this bill,” he said. “They are putting intense political pressure on Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snow and Mike Enzi, to bow out, because they want to kill it. So I’ve got a challenge ahead of me to work out all this on policy as we go through these meetings.

“The other thing is the politics of it: ‘People, this is the right thing to do for America. I know you’re under intense political pressure, but do the right thing. I know it’s easy for me to say right now, because I’m getting beat up by both sides, but not nearly as much as you are by the Republican hierarchy.’ ”

Yesterday, in an interview with FOX News, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) underscored the GOP’s reticence to support health reform. He told Neil Cavuto that he doesn’t think “a single Republican” will vote for health care legislation that looks like the bills in the House or Senate HELP committee."

The conservative Michael Barone explains the failed strategies of all the Republican candidates

Michale Barone has become a generally reflexive conservative over the years, but as Ed Kilrore points out he remains a decent Presidential analyst. Here is his take on what each of the various major candidates for the Republican nomination for President in 2008 did wrong. He also points out that the potential candidates for 2012 don't look any more likely to get it right.

His analysis of 2008 looks pretty good to me, and I hope he is right about 2012. I do notice that he does not discuss McCain's desperation choice of Sarah Palin for his ticket, but he is discussing the primary and that was the general election.

Sarah Palin's Future

I've heard that there is talk that Sarah Palin might replace the RNC Chair Steele. That seems extremely unlikely to me.

My impression of the job of national party chair is that it's purpose is to raise funds and allocate them from the national party to everyone else to get them elected. Determining general national party strategy is a part of that, since it determines how the funds are allocated and is limited by the funds that are raised. No one, not even the Republicans, have a clue how Palin would perform organizing the raising of funds or what her priorities would be. Face it - for all her celebrity, she's a flake with no interest in or talent for administration or supervision. And planning party strategy? Palin? Really?

There are enough self-protective people in the Republican party to keep her out of that job. She'll never get it. Steele is safe from her, at least.

Her future is as a celebrity in some fashion, and not a very successful one in the long run. She hasn't the discipline, curiosity or education needed for that. She couldn't even succeed on Hollywood Squares. Not sufficiently entertaining to large masses. Her social Conservative attitudes and her celebrity and celebrity talent do seem to make her very qualified for some functions in the evangelical public Relations and entertainment functions. If one of the evangelical leaders decides he can use her, that is probably where she will wind up - if she wants it and can stick to it. I suspect that as long as she has adoring crowds telling her how great she is, she will stick to it.

That's my bet, any way. Have I missed anything?

We are watching the end of the conservative movement.

The media is being polite. They are describing the collapse of the conservative control of the Republican Party as the "evolving of the Republican Party." What we are watching is really the death throes of conservative control of the Republicans, at least nationally. The fact that Specter has been forced to switch to the Democratic Party is just one more dead canary in the conservative coal mine.

The mechanism is, I suspect, that the conservatives have used the issue of "Who is more conservative?" as an election tool for years, much as they used the cry "Who lost China?" for years during the Cold War. They've used the cry "Who is more conservative?" since Reagan, in fact. The result is that they have elected the strongest right-wing extremists possible because they think that is the route to electoral success. It certainly mobilizes the base, especially after they allied with the evangelical religious conservatives of the Christian Coalition.

Suddenly (from their point of view) the public has realized the disastrous consequences of letting the conservatives run government and turned their back on conservatives. All except the strongest conservatives, in fact, have backed away. So have many of the evangelical conservatives. But as the moderates flake off from the Republican brand, the remaining conservatives still think this is just a bad patch and that conservatism is still the route to electoral success. Since things are going bad for them with the public, they are retreating to their strongest point - be more conservative. So the most extreme conservatives are being concentrated in the party and they are becoming more desperate, much as soldiers fighting a losing battle will.

The result is that extremists are running the party now, not the politicians. Limbaugh never compromises, and always goes for the most extreme position. So do the other talk show hosts, as do the extreme writers like Coulter. The good politicians are recognizing that won't work, but the base won't keep them in office if they don't adhere to the most extreme conservatism.

What we are watching is the death throes of the conservative movement, and they won't go quietly. They can't. Conservatism is inherently an extremist quasi-religion.

I'm at last enjoying the show. I suspect I am feeling a lot the way my parents did in 1944 when both the Germans and the Japanese were in retreat on all fronts. Neither fascist nation gave up, either. Both, if anything, became more extreme. The Kamikaze pilots are only one example of the extreme measures they took. So was the German enlisting of teenagers from the Hitler youth to defend Berlin and the German homeland behind the Rhine. So was the desperate German offensive of the Battle of the Bulge.

I do expect conservative extremism to get even worse in the near future, though. That will last until the talk show conservatives are dethroned as the effective leaders of the conservative movement.

At least, that's my current best guess.

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Addendum 6:30 pm
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell thinks that Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party is a threat to the country.

I guess that as an extremist conservative McConnell can't distinguish between a threat to the Republican conservatives and a threat to America.

The Marc Rich pardon: some background

When Eric Holder was nominated to become Obama's new Attorney General, the question of his involvement in President Clinton's last minute pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich was raised by the Republicans in the Senate. This post is about Marc Rich and the alleged crime for which he was pardoned, and does not consider Eric Holder's involvement.

Marc Rich was an extremely successful (according to Forbes magazine he was the 242d richest man in America in 2006) commodities trader who, with his partner Pincus Green bought and sold international commodities, including Iranian oil. Rich and Green were indicted for tax evasion and illegal trading with Iran in 1983 by then U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani. At the time of the indictment both Rich and Green were located in Switzerland, and they never returned to America to answer the charges. The charges were brought under the RICO statutes. The Justice Department stopped using the RICO statutes for tax cases of this type in 1989.

Interestingly, "Scooter" Libby, the aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of giving the CIA undercover Officer Valerie Plame's name and affiliation with the CIA to the media for political purposes. Libby told Congress during hearings after the pardon that in his legal opinion, Marc Rich had not violated U.S. tax law, but could be criticized for trading with Iran even while the Iranians were holding the American hostages.

So Rich's guilt was never tested in court before the Clinton pardon, the RICO law under which the charges were made have ceased to be a basis for such charges, and a case can be made for his innocence even if it had gone to court.

But why did Clinton make the pardon at all? Bill Clinton wrote a New York Times OpEd published 02/18/2001in which he explained his reasoning.

(1) I understood that the other oil companies that had structured transactions like those on which Mr. Rich and Mr. Green were indicted were instead sued civilly by the government; (2) I was informed that, in 1985, in a related case against a trading partner of Mr. Rich and Mr. Green, the Energy Department, which was responsible for enforcing the governing law, found that the manner in which the Rich/Green companies had accounted for these transactions was proper; (3) two highly regarded tax experts, Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center, reviewed the transactions in question and concluded that the companies "were correct in their U.S. income tax treatment of all the items in question, and [that] there was no unreported federal income or additional tax liability attributable to any of the [challenged] transactions"; (4) in order to settle the government's case against them, the two men's companies had paid approximately $200 million in fines, penalties and taxes, most of which might not even have been warranted under the Wolfman/Ginsburg analysis that the companies had followed the law and correctly reported their income; (5) the Justice Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others, agreed with at the time; (6) it was my understanding that Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder's position on the pardon application was "neutral, leaning for"; (7) the case for the pardons was reviewed and advocated not only by my former White House counsel Jack Quinn but also by three distinguished Republican attorneys: Leonard Garment, a former Nixon White House official; William Bradford Reynolds, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department; and Lewis Libby, now Vice President Cheney's chief of staff; (8) finally, and importantly, many present and former high-ranking Israeli officials of both major political parties and leaders of Jewish communities in America and Europe urged the pardon of Mr. Rich because of his contributions and services to Israeli charitable causes, to the Mossad's efforts to rescue and evacuate Jews from hostile countries, and to the peace process through sponsorship of education and health programs in Gaza and the West Bank.

Later in 1981 Bush 43 released transcripts of a phone call between Bill Clinton and then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak that demonstrates a lot of the pressure that Clinton was receiving. Remember that Bill Clinton ended his Presidency with an all-out push to achieve Peace in the Israeli - Palestinian conflict. On August 18, 2001 Josh Marshall discussed the transcripts in his then very new Talking Points Memo blog. This timing is interesting. The Rich pardon was big news at the time, and totally disappeared from the news less than a month later when it was eclipsed by 9/11. There is no working link I have found to the original Newsweek article by Isikoff which Marshall quotes.

Isikoff editorializes thus:

The transcripts offer no “smoking gun” showing that the former president was motivated by large donations to his presidential library or by generous campaign contributions. But the conversations do show that, in sharp contrast to the picture painted by some of his former aides, Clinton was keenly aware of details of the Rich case, and appeared determined to grant the highly questionable pardon even though, as he admitted to Barak, there was “almost no precedent in American history.”

No smoking gun? I'll say. The transcripts don't seem to contain anything even touching on this point.

Say whatever you will about the wisdom of the Marc Rich pardon, but the transcripts themselves seem to confirm a key component of Clinton's story -- that Ehud Barak, then Prime Minister of Israel, was lobbying heavily on Rich's behalf because, as he says in the transcripts, the fugitive financier had “[made] a lot of philanthropic contributions to Israeli institutions and activities like education" and because "it could be important (gap) not just financially, but [because] he helped Mossad [the Israeli intelligence agency] on more than one case."

As I look at this history two things jump out at me. First, the pardon itself had many factors that could easily justify it. Second, it is extremely doubtful with all the high level outside pressures on Clinton that anything that Eric Holder might have done except perhaps the criminal act of destroying the paperwork at the last minute might have changed Clinton's decision to pardon Marc Rich. Today this is nothing but a Senate Republican ploy to throw red meat to the extreme Clinton-hating elements in the Republican right-wing and to tar the Obama administration with elements of that irrational Clinton-hate that remains so active the much of the extremist elements of the Republican party. I doubt we'll be hearing more about it from now on. It's now just yesterday's news.

The Republican approach to solving the credit crisis, Recession, and foreclosure mess. Obstruct everything.

When Eric Holder was first announced as the Obama choice to be nominated as Attorney General, there was very little complaint. Even most Republicans considered him well-qualified. But now Karl Rove has decided to go after holder's scalp in the Senate hearings, and the Republican Senators are lining up behind Rove to attack. Why?

Steve Benen offers a good discussion, with this ending

It's possible that Rove, if the "word on the street" is accurate, may simply want congressional Republicans to prove a point, picking a fight they're likely to lose in order to set a combative tone for the next two years. The goal, in other words, would be to maintain as toxic an environment as possible, and the Holder nomination would simply be a means to an end.

It sounds like a pretty dumb strategy for an unpopular party facing off against a man who'll enter the White House with a lot of popularity and goodwill behind him.

Dumb? Yeah, probably, but it's what the Republicans in the Senate do. They can't govern, but as their actions to go after the Automotive Worker's Union no matter what their obstructionism costs the nation shows, they are great at obstructing good governance.

Of course, it's not just the Senate Republicans. They are all talking to each other and deciding how they are going to take the Obama administration down. Also from Steve Benen

The Republican National Committee, true to form, is going to comical lengths to try to connect Barack Obama to Rod Blagojevich, reality notwithstanding. The latest initiative includes a three-minute web video featuring a bunch of instances in which the senator from Illinois met the governor of Illinois. The horror.

The video is likely part of RNC chairman Mike Duncan's campaign to keep his job -- he's desperate to prove to Republicans that he can be at least as ridiculous as the other candidates for the post. But outside this context, the Republican National Committee's baseless smear campaign against the president-elect seems unusually cheap, even by RNC standards.

The Republicans have created the mess America is currently in, and their solution to the problems their greed-first anti-union ideology has created is to attack the government that has been elected to try to solve the problems they have created.

"Tailgunner" Joe McCarthy is the true father of the modern Republican Party.

Neal Gabler explains that the true father of the modern Republican Party is Joe McCarthy, not the Libertarian government-hating ideologue Barry Goldwater. McCarthy was not an ideologue. He provided a populist technique for invoking public fears and anxieties to manipulate votes.

Goldwater's ideology never interested very many voters. It was the McCarthyite election tactics of demonizing the opponent that has built today's Republican Party.

Instead of running in a line through the conservatives, Goldwater to Reagan to G. W. Bush, with slight diversions to Nixon and G. H. W. Bush who governed as moderates, the true lineage of the modern Republican Party runs from Joe McCarthy to Richard Nixon, to Reagan to George W. Bush with a diversion when Goldwater took control of the party in 1964 and broke the power of the northeastern moderate Republicans who had previously run the party. The McCarthy line also runs through Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, while Sarah Palin is clearly applying to join the tradition.

Bill Buckley strongly supported Joe McCarthy all his life, even writing both a defense of Joe McCarthy as well as a poorly written novelization of McCarthy's activities. Many other conservatives such as Ann Coulter are known to similarly support him. As Gabler says, McCarthy is now found in the core DNA or modern Republicans.

While Reagan and Goldwater are the public faces of modern Republicanism, Joe McCarthy is it's soul.

Go read Gabler's article in the Los Angeles Times if you want to understand modern American politics.

[ h/t to TPM. ]

Maybe the election happened a month or so too soon

Americans are beginning to understand what the Republican party really means for the nation.

PRINCETON, NJ -- The Republican Party's image has gone from bad to worse over the past month, as only 34% of Americans in a Nov. 13-16 Gallup Poll say they have a favorable view of the party, down from 40% in mid-October. The 61% now holding an unfavorable view of the GOP is the highest Gallup has recorded for that party since the measure was established in 1992.

By contrast, the public's views of the Democratic Party remain as positive after the election as they were just prior to it. More than half of Americans, 55%, currently hold a favorable view of the Democratic Party and only 39% an unfavorable view, highly typical of views toward the Democrats all year.

As the surviving Republican extremists in Congress do their best to obstruct every effort to help the nation get through the economic catastrophe they created with their Reagan Revolution market fundamentalism policies, is the drop in their approval ratings any surprise?

If retiring Republican Congressman Tom Davis thought the Republican brand was as bad as tainted dog food before the election, what does he think it is now? Let's hope that that the public understanding of the nature of conservative Republicans lasts for four decades or more as it did after they lost control of the House of Representatives the last time in 1954.

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If you want to understand what is wrong with the conservative Republican Party, go read this article about the two tribes in America by Digby. Lincoln described the petulant refusal of conservative Southerns to be convinced that those who disagreed with them could compromise and let them alone to live in their error. This was, and remains today, a major characteristic of Southern American conservatives.

Republican governors on the outcome of the recent election

Sixteen of 21 current Republican governors met at the Republican Governors Association in a sleek hotel on Biscayne Bay. Here is what some had to say about McCain's loss of the Presidency:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- passed over by Sen. John McCain for the No. 2 spot on the presidential ticket and one of nine GOP governors who preside over states won by Barack Obama -- offered a summary of his party's predicament at the governors' opening lunch.

"We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states," Pawlenty said. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation."

As if that weren't enough, he ticked off a few more challenges.

"Similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, at 37 the youngest of the group, was more succinct: "They fired us with cause." He was referring to the loss of at least six senators and more than 20 House members, the first time since 1932 that the party has lost so many seats in consecutive elections.

These are Republicans capable of being elected governor in their respective states. They are very competent people and do not misunderstand the lessons of the November 4th election.

Let's look at these comments from Republican governors in detail:

• we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast,
• we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states,
• we cannot compete on the West Coast,
• we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and
• the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states.

These are geographic indicators. Then there are demographic ones.

• we have a significant deficit with women,
• we have a large deficit with Hispanics,
• we have a large deficit with African American voters,
• we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances.

This is one Hell of a deficit for the Republicans nationally. What do they do to change these deficits?

So far the Republicans seem to be blaming these deficits on not being sufficiently conservative. George W. Bush was not a real conservative, so he failed. They therefore intend to double down on extreme conservatism. When the Democrats offer solutions to the current economic problems, they are largely going to be in the "Hell! No!!" camp, then blame the Democrats for not solving America's economic problems (which they created.)

Anyone think that is going to work for them to return to being a majority party?

Palin for President 2012! Not likely.

OK. So Sarah Palin is ambitious (we knew that) and thinks that she might be able to parlay her short time on the national stage into a run for the Presidency in four or eight years. What does she face if she tries that? Let’s look at her positive and negative characteristics as a national candidate for office.

1. She has her strong ambition, her good looks and her good health.

2. She has the skills that helped her achieve success in a beauty pageant. Those are some formidable political skills. They include poise, a gift of gab and an ability to read and please a crowd. She's not afraid of the media, although she avoids the better media hounds.

3. She is also a well-respected member of the Christian fundamentalist crowd, so she has a built-in base of fervent supporters.

4. She has a track record of political success in Alaska. Being elected Governor is no small feat. However, Alaska is a small sandbox to work in. That and the age and corruption of the existing powers in Alaska allowed her to use the advantages she brought to the game to win the governorship. Whether she can keep it will be another issue.

5. Going forward, she has the fantastic publicity that McCain gave her by bringing her in as his Veep candidate. This will be a mixed bag.

On the other side it has become quite clear that Mrs. Palin has several negatives which we can see.

1. She has no innate interest in either actually governing or in learning in general. Her general ignorance is quite obvious. Her intolerance and impatience is also rather clear. She does not appear to separate the job she has as Governor from her own personal wants and desires, nor does she understand much about how government works. She offers her personality for election, not her ability to govern. The general awareness of this is part of the negative side of the publicity she has received.

2. She has been exposed in Alaska as not beyond attack. It looks like she has not gotten along well with either the legislature or with the Republican Party in Alaska. This is going to be a big fight for her, beginning when the Alaska legislature reconvenes. Whatever the outcome, she runs for reelection in two years. Without any real knowledge of Alaska politics, I'd bet that her potential opponents are heavily mining the last two months for ammunition to attack her and finding a great deal.

3. Her base of support is the Christian conservatives. That support, taken together with her being relatively unknown, probably were critical in electing her governor. That being an unknown is now gone. Her national exposure will be at best a mixed blessing.

4. Nationally the Christian conservatives are becoming less interested in political activities. They have not gotten much back for all the political effort they have expended in the last three decades and the Reagan era Christian Coalition leaders are gone. Even with Palin on the ticket, they didn't do a lot for McCain.

5. If she goes national, she no longer has the small sandbox to operate in. She will have a lot of competition even for the Christian conservatives, starting with Huckabee.

6. Insiders from the McCain campaign have already shown they are ready to torpedo any effort Palin makes to run nationally. Any attempt to run for President will draw a great deal of opposition inside the Republican Party.

So it appears that Sarah Palin has gotten a great deal of national attention, both good and bad. She is going to take that back to Alaska where she has the upcoming legislature to deal with, her investigation for misuse of her office when she fired the Security Director for what appear to be personal reasons, and then she has to run for reelection before the next Presidential cycle. Each of these situations presents her with a minefield to traverse, although the misuse of her office may just be more a problem for her image than a threat to her has governor.

Assuming that she lasts and gets reelected governor, she is in the same position that Bush was in 1998, except that her potential base is the Christian Social Conservatives rather than the financial conservatives who supported Bush. Even if she did get the Christian Conservatives to support her in the national arena, they could not nominate Huckabee in the 2008 Republican primaries, and Huckabee is clearly a more capable leader than Sarah Palin is. The Republicans who worked in the McCain campaign have already demonstrated opposition to her. It is very unlikely that the Republican Party would ever nominate her for President.

But even if the Republicans were to nominate Palin for President, what issues does she run on? McCain just ran a campaign without offering any solutions for serious issues, and he lost. Palin has only her personality and her social conservatism to offer. Her personality is not all favorable, in spite of her ability to charm some selected audiences. It is almost impossible to imagine the American voters electing her President.

It’s obvious that Sarah Palin has the ambition to run for President in 2012 or 2016, but with her lack of preparation for governing and the torturous path she will have to negotiate between now and then it is extremely unlikely that she is going to make it back to the national stage any time soon. But she believes in miracles. That will keep her hopes up. The odds against her success are extremely high.

Erickson wants to rebuild the Republican Party

Here's his program. If he could make it work it might really turn the Republican Party upside down and create an effective political infrastructure. But Whiskeyfire makes a really good point.

One of the major issues that the GOP has going forward is that its campaign machinery -- the phone trees, voter lists, GOTV operations, that sort of thing -- that all seems to be entangled with the religious/crazy/bigot faction. The Prop 8 Yes thing, for instance, was hateful, sure, but well organized. The McCain campaign? Not so much.

Can the GOP even run a campaign on a practical, logistical, structural level without having to genuflect to its most extreme, Palin-loving wing? It's not like the corporate cons seem to have ever really bothered to build the sort of infrastructure that you need to get folks on the phones and boots on the ground.

The Democratic party, the netroots, the Obama campaign, MoveOn, labor-- these are not really the same groups, but they overlap, and they all have an infrastructure and are able to do, say, GOTV and the other sorts of unglamorous troop-rallying work that you need to win an election. On the GOP side, well, the best voted for Obama, and the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Can the Republicans build a competitive party that is not largely dominated by the social conservatives?

The big thing that came out of the Reagan era was the coalition of conservatives and the Christian coalition. It made the Republican party dominant in national politics for three decades. But the Christian Coalition itself has declined. Ralph Reed left it in the 90's. Pat Robertson has declined as he aged, and Jerry Falwell has died. No one has replaced them. Karl Rove was able to mobilize the evangelicals for the 2004 Presidential election.

The failure of the Republican party to choose a Presidential candidate that appealed to both money conservatives and social conservatives was the demonstration of what is wrong with the Republican Party. The majority of American voters will not vote for the social conservatives, even if they have the ex-beauty queen Sarah Palin on the ticket as a second banana. The money conservatives and their Libertarian brethren have caused the current really severe economic Recession. The two branches of conservatism don't like each other much, but to succeed they had to work in concert.

That's the basis for the failure of John McCain's presidential dreams. That's why he had to bring on Sarah Palin who because a greater liability than an asset.

I don't think that Eric's efforts to get the Republican Party to effectively use the Internet is going to substitute for the close concert of the social conservatives and the money conservatives that came out of the Reagan era, and I don't think those two groups are going to go into another coalition that subordinates the social conservatives. Nor do I think that extremists of the type that characterize the money conservatives and also the social conservatives will be able to operate in the kind of bottom-up structure that the Internet best creates. Now the Libertarian Republicans can use the Internet as they proved when Ron Paul ran for President, but the Libertarians never got significantly more than 10% of the Republican primary voters.

The result is that Eric Erickson's proposal to rebuild the Republican Party will never work until that party recreates itself as a moderate, bottom up organization. Because of the way that redistricting creates Congressional districts filled with like-minded extremists, the surviving Republicans are the most extreme of the extremist Republicans. That's why the Republican civil wars has already started, and it will last for at least the next two elections.

Maybe after that some of Erickson's plan may become feasible. By then the Republicans will look a lot like the Democrats, though. Erickson will hate that.

The fracture points of the upcoming Repbulican civil war

Two weeks from now Obama is going to win the election for President. Is that a certainty? No. But it is most likely. The result will be (among other things) a civil war within the Republican Party. Kevin Drum anticipates the nature of that civil war. But he is oversimplifying the Republican problem. He thinks it will be a civil war between extreme right-wingers and moderates. I disagree.

The Reagan Revolution was based on an alliance between the small government - total deregulation - free marketers; the NeoCons; the southern opponents of the Civil Rights Movement; and the Social conservatives. (There was overlap between the last two groups.) That alliance was held together in 1988 by Bush 41 because he was the direct descendant of Reagan, but he didn't keep the social conservatives in 1992. That loss, plus Ross Perot combined with the economic downturn in 1992 allowed Clinton to win that election in 1992. Clinton then won reelection in 1996 based on incumbency. But in 2000 Bush 43 brought back the social conservatives, which was a key element in "W's" narrow win. Essentially Bush 43 recreated the Reagan coalition. The margin of Bush 43's win in 2004 was his incumbency. But he had no legacy that passed the social conservatives to any Republican candidate in 2008. The big split in the Republican Party was and remains that between the social conservatives and the rest of the Republicans. The old Reagan alliance collapsed during the Republican Presidential primaries in 2008.

The social conservatives would not accept Giuliani (pro-abortion) or Romney (Mormon) under any circumstances. Nor did they find McCain acceptable, though he was not so repellent as Giuliani or Romney. Huckabee was the candidate for the social conservatives, but he never got close to a majority of the Republican voters. McCain was more acceptable to the non social conservative side of the Republican Party than Romney or Giuliani, so he ended up with the nomination by default. But McCain himself was going nowhere until he chose Palin (after the social conservatives vetoed Lieberman.)

Now we are coming down to the crunch, two weeks before the election. The McCain camp has essentially offered the social conservatives anything and everything they want (Palin was the key), so the social conservatives are beginning to come on board. But that capitulation to the social conservatives has lost the moderate Republicans totally. That explains the Colin Powell endorsement of Obama.

In essence the Republican Party of the Reagan alliance (the moderate and right-wing Republicans combined with the Christian Coalition) has collapsed. But it's a lot more complicated than just a far right and moderate right disagreement. It's basically the social conservatives demanding control of the Republican Party and the rest of the Republicans refusing to give it. The extreme right and the moderate right analysis is just part of the "rest of the Republicans." It does not explain what is happening to the Republican Party at all.

The civil war within the Republican Party is going to be between the social conservatives and the rest of the Republicans. Neither side will accept dominance by the other, and without the two combined the national Republican Party will not be able to win the Presidency.

The coming Republican civil war is going to be interesting. Unless something or someone unexpected comes out of the woodwork, the Republican Party is set to go into a perpetual minority status.

The Republican route to ruin

It's pretty clear now that barring some really strange event, Barack Obama is going to win the election for President come November 4th. This year started out as a severely anti-incumbent year, and the recent financial collapse of Wall Street and banks world wide have greatly exaggerated that trend.

The fact that the Republican Party could not field a candidate for President who unified the various factions of the Reagan coalition was easily recognizable early on. There was no Bush-recommended candidate, and every major candidate who could collect enough money to enter the primary peaked out with 40% or fewer of the votes needed to win, so that finally everyone dropped out except the zombie candidate, John McCain, the Non-Republican Republican whose campaign had gone broke in the Summer of 2007 and had to be resurrected. Contrast this with the Democrats who fielded a superb group of candidates which winnowed down to Hillary Clinton and the upstart Barack Obama who were each rolling in money and who fought the primary out over half a year in all 50 states. The final decision of Democrats to choose Obama as the better of the two remaining candidates (by a small factor) was in stark contrast to the Republican choice of John McCain as the only Republican candidate not disqualified by the Primary process.

Throughout the year this was going on the American economic situation continued to get worse, while the economic pundits in the mostly brain-dead and propagandistic media kept trumpeting the "news" that the economy was going to be improving by the end of Summer by the end of 2008 by early 2009 maybe in late 2009. The fact is that no one really knew how bad things were, what was causing the economic problems, or what the future held. It was still possible for individuals trying to sell complicated bank products or elect Republican candidates like Phil Gramm to claim that the economic decline was merely a "mental recession" as late as late Summer 2009. The media was filled with economic "happy talk" even after Bear Stearns investment bank collapsed in March and right up until the other four major Wall Street investment banks disappeared and the largest insurance company in the world, AIG had to be taken over by the U.S. Government in September 2008. Suddenly the media replaced the economic happy talk with gloom and doom to match their ignorance.

The McCain for President campaign then tried to shift the political discussion to how scary Barack Obama's character was, while offering a series of improbable programs that have titles that sound like solutions to the economic problems. Each such program has lasted through about half a week of scrutiny before being relegated to the trash heap and quickly replaced by another faux program.

The outcome of the election is already quite clear. It's just a question of how big Obama is going to win - and considering that the alternative is the aged John McCain with the totally unqualified Sarah Palin as his Vice president, we may all thank God for the likelihood that Obama is going to win the Presidential election.

The Presidential campaign is currently running hot and heavy, and the media is thoroughly invested with trying to sell it as a competition between two equally capable candidates. They have to. Without a solid horse race to sell, the media will suffer a bad loss of advertising revenue. But the media revenue is the main reason they are selling the horse race. Without an unlikely surprise event, the real race for President has been decided.

So what happens after November 4th? At this point we get a sermon [*] from David Frum.

American voters are staggering under the worst financial crisis since at least 1982. Asset values are tumbling, consumer spending is contracting, and a recession is visibly on the way. This crisis follows upon seven years in which middle-class incomes have stagnated and Republican economic management has been badly tarnished. Anybody who imagines that an election can be won under these circumstances by banging on about William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright is … to put it mildly … severely under-estimating the electoral importance of pocketbook issues.

We conservatives are sending a powerful, inadvertent message with this negative campaign against Barack Obama's associations and former associations: that we lack a positive agenda of our own and that we don’t care about the economic issues that are worrying American voters.

Republicans used negative campaigning successfully against Michael Dukakis and John Kerry, it’s true. But 1988 and 2004 were both years of economic expansion, pro-incumbent years. 2008 is like 1992, only worse. If we couldn’t beat Clinton in 1992 by pointing to his own personal draft-dodging and his own personal womanizing, how do we expect to defeat Obama in a much more anti-incumbent year by attacking the misconduct of people with whom he once kept company (but doesn’t any more)?

Here’s another thing to keep in mind:

Those who press this Ayers line of attack are whipping Republicans and conservatives into a fury that is going to be very hard to calm after November. Is it really wise to send conservatives into opposition in a mood of disdain and fury for a man who may well be the next president of the United States, incidentally the first African-American president? Anger is a very bad political adviser. It can isolate us and push us to the extremes at exactly the moment when we ought to be rebuilding, rethinking, regrouping and recruiting.

Normally I don't bother with anything from NRO, including David Frum who occasionally makes sense. But this time he points to the very possible future that the Republican Party is whipping its supporters into an orgy of anger that is not going to die down after the Presidential campaign is over. For a well-known Republican writer like Frum to publish such a warning in the National Review Online [a principle conservative journal] just before the election is a strong indication that he is very concerned that the anger the McCain campaign is building up is a really dangerous trend.

It really is a danger. The Senate Republicans have done everything they could to sabotage any accomplishments by Congress since they lost control of the Senate in January 2007. The major effort by very right-wing House Republicans to kill off the first effort to pass the Paulson Proposal is another example. They reversed themselves only with they found the public was going to blame them for the financial crisis if they continued to act to block action.

It appears that Frum's warning is coming much too late. The anger is already built up. Once the results of the election are known, the conservative Republican anger is not going to be tamped down. The conservatives have already run all the effective Republican moderate leaders out of Congress. There are no remaining "wise old men" to turn to.

The result is going to be that in addition to severe economic crisis facing America in 2009 and two on-going wars, there is going to be an angry conservative Republican Party who would rather blow up the entire American government than work with their opponents to solve America's problems.

I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am. I see no real hope for good sense and positive efforts to put America first likely to come from the Republican Party in 2009 and 2010. It's going to instead be all anger all the time until the anger burns itself out and the politicians who are fomenting it are mostly removed from office.

Will there be any vestige of the Republican party remaining when that anger is removed from government? Will the brand name survive? That's probably as much a question as what the new structure of banking in the American economy is going to be in the future.

---

[*] "sermon" is Frum's own description of what he wrote.

[ h/t to Laura Rozen at War & Piece. ]

Veteran's Administration refuses to allow veterans to vote

Why won't the Secretary of the Veteran's Administration allow veteran's in his care to register to vote? From the New York Times

On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

These are the guys who fought for our right to vote, and now the VA won't allow them to register to vote unless they are physically capable of escaping control of the Veteran's Administration.

This is more Republican voter suppression, but I thought that veterans were a Republican-oriented voter block? What are Karl Rove's disciples afraid of? Poor veterans?

How many flip-flops can a Republican candidate for President make?

Consider McCain's dilemma. He is a Republican candidate running for President at a time when the Republican Party brand is anathema to voters. Yet to be elected, he has to get the a strong turnout by the very Republican deadenders who still support George Bush in his disastrous regime. But he also has to get a lot of independents to choose him over Obama. The messages that work well for the deadenders at the ones tha tdrive away the independents, and vice versa.

How does McCain thread that needle? The deadenders and the independents demand very different and mostly conflicting promises.

Flip-flops.

McCain tells one audience one thing and then changes his position for a different audience. Flip-flops? Not important. McCain will do or say anything to get to be President, and of all the various candidates who ran this year, he is the one least objectionable to the largest number of Republican party members.

This is McCain's last shot at the Presidency. He'll do or say anything to get it. That's the source of the flip-flops. Is he capable of doing the job? Not likely. As bad as Bush has been, McCain acting on what he really believes would be much worse.

If the media were doing their jobs, the flop flops would be reported and sharply criticized. But there is no more independent medial The TV media - which is driven by personality and ignores issues and consistency - now belongs to the Republican Party. The media owners fear the loss of power and control of their market that will be caused by electing a Democrat as President.

That's why they don't report the many, many flop-flops from the McCain team.

Here is a list of many of the recent flip-flops that McCain is guilty of.

The past couple of weeks have been especially difficult when it comes to McCain flip-flops.

* McCain supported the drilling moratorium; now he’s against it.

* McCain strongly opposes a windfall-tax on oil company profits. Three weeks earlier, he was perfectly comfortable with the idea.

* McCain thought Bush’s warrantless-wiretap program circumvented the law; now he believes the opposite.

* McCain defended “privatizing” Social Security. Now he says he’s against privatization (though he actually still supports it.)

Wait, I’m not done with the last two weeks yet….

* McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn’t.

* McCain thought the estate tax was perfectly fair. Now he believes the opposite.

* He opposed indefinite detention of terrorist suspects. When the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion, he called it “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

* McCain said he would “not impose a litmus test on any nominee.” He used to promise the opposite.

And these come after these other reversals from April and May:

* McCain believes the telecoms should be forced to explain their role in the administration’s warrantless surveillance program as a condition for retroactive immunity. He used to believe the opposite.

* McCain supported storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain supported moving “towards normalization of relations” with Cuba. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Hamas. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain believed the U.S. should engage in diplomacy with Syria. Now he believes the opposite.

* He argued the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party’s policy making. Now he believes the opposite.

* McCain supported his own lobbying-reform legislation from 1997. Now he doesn’t.

* He wanted political support from radical televangelists like John Hagee and Rod Parsley. Now he doesn’t.

* McCain supported the Lieberman/Warner legislation to combat global warming. Now he doesn’t.

And these are the flip-flops I’ve noticed earlier:

* McCain pledged in February 2008 that he would not, under any circumstances, raise taxes. Specifically, McCain was asked if he is a “‘read my lips’ candidate, no new taxes, no matter what?” referring to George H.W. Bush’s 1988 pledge. “No new taxes,” McCain responded. Two weeks later, McCain said, “I’m not making a ‘read my lips’ statement, in that I will not raise taxes.”

* McCain is both for and against a “rogue state rollback” as a focus of his foreign policy vision.

* McCain says he considered and did not consider joining John Kerry’s Democratic ticket in 2004.

* In 1998, he championed raising cigarette taxes to fund programs to cut underage smoking, insisting that it would prevent illnesses and provide resources for public health programs. Now, McCain opposes a $0.61-per-pack tax increase, won’t commit to supporting a regulation bill he’s co-sponsoring, and has hired Philip Morris’ former lobbyist as his senior campaign adviser.

* McCain has changed his economic worldview on multiple occasions.

* McCain has changed his mind about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq on multiple occasions.

* McCain is both for and against attacking Barack Obama over his former pastor at his former church.

* McCain believes Americans are both better and worse off than they were before Bush took office.

* McCain is both for and against earmarks for Arizona.

* McCain believes his endorsement from radical televangelist John Hagee was both a good and bad idea.

* McCain’s first mortgage plan was premised on the notion that homeowners facing foreclosure shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.” His second mortgage plan took largely the opposite position.

* McCain vowed, if elected, to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term. Soon after, he decided he would no longer even try to reach that goal.

* In February 2008, McCain reversed course on prohibiting waterboarding.

* McCain used to champion the Law of the Sea convention, even volunteering to testify on the treaty’s behalf before a Senate committee. Now he opposes it.

* McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to illegal immigrants’ kids who graduate from high school. Now he’s against it.

* On immigration policy in general, McCain announced in February 2008 that he would vote against his own legislation.

* In 2006, McCain sponsored legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving “feedback” on the proposal, McCain told far-right activist groups that he opposes his own measure.

* McCain said before the war in Iraq, “We will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” Four years later, McCain said he knew all along that the war in Iraq war was “probably going to be long and hard and tough.”

* McCain said he was the “greatest critic” of Rumsfeld’s failed Iraq policy. In December 2003, McCain praised the same strategy as “a mission accomplished.” In March 2004, he said, “I’m confident we’re on the right course.” In December 2005, he said, “Overall, I think a year from now, we will have made a fair amount of progress if we stay the course.”

* McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.

* McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn’t be allowed.

* McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans “deserved” the 9/11 attacks.

* McCain used to oppose Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy, but he reversed course in February.

* On a related note, he said 2005 that he opposed the tax cuts because they were “too tilted to the wealthy.” By 2007, he denied ever having said this, and insisted he opposed the cuts because of increased government spending.

* In 2000, McCain accused Texas businessmen Sam and Charles Wyly of being corrupt, spending “dirty money” to help finance Bush’s presidential campaign. McCain not only filed a complaint against the Wylys for allegedly violating campaign finance law, he also lashed out at them publicly. In April, McCain reached out to the Wylys for support.

* McCain supported a major campaign-finance reform measure that bore his name. In June 2007, he abandoned his own legislation.

* McCain opposed a holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., before he supported it.

* McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.

* McCain was anti-ethanol. Now he’s pro-ethanol.

* McCain was both for and against state promotion of the Confederate flag.

* McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.

McCain's staff claims that McCain has "evolved" in his positions over the year. Since the Republican Party doesn't accept "evolution", that is a strange theory and perhaps even another "flip-flop."

It's not evolution. Its about a Republican Party that will do or say anything to keep power. That's a role that John McCain is perfectly suited to play. George W. Bush stole the job of President out from under him in 2000, and now he has his last possible chance. He'll say or do anything to get the job of President.

But the Republican party will vote for anyone who promises to keep their "brand" in the Presidency, and they couldn't present a competent candidate who the American voting public might accept. McCain is their least worse candidate. That's how bad it is.

A candidate who will lie, cheat or steal to get the job. That's the best the Republicans could offer this year. That's who they got in John McCain.