Republican Party used to run on a reputation of competence - That's gone now

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a Republican Party which prided itself on its reputation for hard nosed competence. I wonder where those allegedly competent politicians went? Look at how the Republican Senate leadership handled the toilet stall issue Sen. Larry Craig handed them.

WASHINGTON - from AP via Yahoo News

Larry who?

Now that scandal-tinged Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has reneged on a pledge to resign this fall, his fellow Republican senators act as though they hardly know him. They want voters to forget him, too.

But they privately acknowledge that an earlier strategy to drive Craig from office has backfired, sticking them with an open-ended ethics investigation likely to keep the issue before the public for months.

Senate Republicans demanded the Ethics Committee inquiry into his sex-sting conviction last summer in hopes of forcing Craig to resign. He essentially called their bluff this month when he reversed his decision to resign Sept. 30 unless a court let him drop his guilty plea.

Now Republicans are powerless to stop a process almost certain to do more political damage to the party in general than to a retiring senator.

But what the heck. They've done such a great job invading and occupying Iraq, haven't they? Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Commander of U.S. troops in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004 has this to say about the ??competence?? of the administration and Congress in Iraq.

The former top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq slammed the handling of the war and gave a bleak assessment of the current situation in Iraq.

“There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight,” retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez told a convention of military journalists on Friday. [Snip]

the U.S. government still has not brought all the resources needed to win in Iraq.

“From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan, to the administration’s latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize the political, economic and military power,” Sanchez said.

Continuing changes to military strategy alone will not achieve victory, rather it will only “stave off defeat,” he said.

“The administration, Congress and the entire inter-agency, especially the State Department, must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure and the American people must hold them accountable.”

Even now, the U.S. government has yet to launch a concerted effort to come up with a strategy to win in Iraq, Sanchez said. Such a strategy should involve political reconciliation among Iraqis, building up the Iraqi security forces and getting Iraq’s regional partners.

Sanchez acknowledged that U.S. officials have adopted that idea, but added that they do not have the necessary nonmilitary resources to carry it out.

“And it is not synchronized, and there is no enforcement of the strategy,” he said.

Republican competence. It's not what it used to be. Charlie Cook discusses the problem:

Just a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, a veteran Republican strategist remarked to me, "I am really worried about whether we can hold our majorities next year." [snip]

"We're supposed to be the party of competence," this Republican professional explained. "When we look incompetent, it's a real problem."

If one was to say what the core value is for each party, it might be compassion for Democrats and competence for Republicans. Democrats are expected to really care about people, and Republicans are supposed to be able to manage things well. When a party strays from its core value, it is in trouble. Republicans learned this from Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, federal budget deficits and runaway spending. [Snip]

Recent independent polling has shown a generic preference for Democrats in presidential and congressional races, and a weakening of Republicans' traditional dominance on national security issues.

It is not that Democrats look good, just that Republicans look bad.

Policy wonks have seen this since George W. Bush started getting into trouble and went on his first month long vacation in August 2001, but bin Laden saved him on 9/11. Since then the various types of corruption and incompetence have been building.

The 2008 election is going to be interesting. The big question - will anyone who IS competent be elected? and when the Republicans get kicked mostly out of power in 2008, will they throw a major tantrum and expand on the current practices of preventing Congress from accomplishing anything at all?

For Republicans who have found power being lost, the tactic of choice is utter nastiness. Ask 12 year-old Graeme Frost.

Apparently the lack of character and values displayed by the Republican politicians (and selected by their voters and financial donors) goes along with their utter lack of competence in running government. I wonder which was first? Lack of character and human values or lack of competence?