Will Bush Suck the GOP Down the Drain With Him?

George Bush continues to swirl around the drain; the only question now is: will he suck the Republican Party down with him?

Michael Gerson, the speechwriter responsible for many of the president's rare moments of eloquence ("the soft bigotry of low expectations," "Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end.") certainly sounded gloomy about the current state of the GOP during his spot on Sunday's This Week with George Stephanopoulos: "The party is in a funk. There is a lack of creativity, very little domestic policy energy. I think it's going to be a problem."

Of course, Gerson is one of the party's brightest thinkers and a Bush loyalist, so his calling it "a problem" must be translated as "a disaster." In the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll [pdf], a whopping 74 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Only 24 percent think we're heading in the right direction.

Which makes the behavior of the leading GOP presidential candidates all the more befuddling. To a man, every one of the top tier candidates -- Giuliani, Romney, McCain, Thompson, and Huckabee -- seems intent on competing to see who can out-Bush Bush. Not a single one of them has tried to put any distance between himself and the president -- especially on foreign policy, the area of Bush's most catastrophic policies. As George Will put it, "They are, if anything, to the right of [Bush] on foreign policy. There's a bidding war to see who can be more hawkish toward Iran."

I've written about how the lunatic fringe of the GOP has taken over the party. Well, the takeover is so complete that those looking to lead the party have come to the conclusion that the only way they can win is to compete for the 24 percent of the country that does not think we are headed over the edge of a cliff. They are all vying to be voted head wacko of the lunatic fringe. Running on a platform of heightened Bushism, they seem to think the reason three-quarters of the country has turned against the president is because he just wasn't extreme enough. So the problems of the GOP will only intensify when Bush packs his bags.

The reign of Bush and Cheney has not only alienated the public. It has also alienated conservative intellectuals like Gerson and Will -- and Bill Buckley, the godfather of conservative intellectuals.

Back in April, writing about Iraq, Buckley called public opinion on the war "savagely decisive" and concluded, "There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican Party will survive this dilemma."

If the Republican Party in its current shape ends up fading away to obscurity and irrelevancy, for its epitaph, we can use the words of Don Rumsfeld (trying to sugar coat a different debacle): "The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost."

Now, can some please explain to me why the Democrats keep caving in to this bunch of dead-enders?

Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff

Comments

[TiaPaula]

I think the Dems are tiptoeing around the Republocrats because they are crazy. And the best course of action is not to look them in the eye, speak softly, and don't make any sudden movements. Lets turn all the crazies over to the world court - I have this wonderful dream where Bush, Cheny, and all of the sociopaths that brought us into this war are in the Hague, waiting for their trial for their war crimes. Plus make them give us back the money they have plundered from the U.S. treasury.

[leftLibertarian]

Bush Will Suck the GOP down the Drain with him.

And the Democrats failure to impeach him will be the end of that party.

[lastrefuge]

I don't think the GOP loses the next election. Sorry. I'm so disgusted with Mukasey being endorsed and the spineless dems rolling over for this treasonous admin-I don't vote for any of them-either side of the aisle.

Why bother to vote for Hillary/Li­eberman/Gi­ulani/any of these shills? Hey I'm an independent looking for a leader. Pfft.

[flatus]

Shrub has access to "the button".

Sleep well.

[NotWaldo]

After the monumental mess they created, the republicans should be anhilited politically for at least half a century. And their leader, the jerk-in-chief, should be sent in exile, yes in exile, in that country where they like him so much (I forgot the name).

[chucktrotter]

Watched Bob Bechtel and Cal Thomas (co-authors of "Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America)" today on C-Span. My, how life has changed on the political front. Years ago, I read a story about a man with a boat who let a venomous snake talk the boater into giving it a ride across the river. It's obvious that the Dems are willing to let our kids die in order to assure the destruction of Shrub's legacy, but is their memory so short that they don't remember the treatment bestowed opon them by these fascist louts just months ago. It's all hearsay, but the number of German POWs created at Omaha Beach was surprisingly small. Get some gonads, you Dems!

[jimbonobo]

Dear A: "Drain" is too PC. Toilet was what you were thinking. Dubya as 1st turd out. Nice image, Arianna. Flush Bush and his demented cronies. However. Gravity and bowl shape does the job, creates the efficient -toodleoo spiral - but bush sucking off a neocronycon turd is OK by me. But I think thaT could be going too Far and we should just agree on
FLUSH BUSH.

[A2]

I hope Bush does suck the repug party down the drain. But I do not think he will. I am from WNY. Local elections were yesterday 6-11-07. The repugs made GAINS, NOT LOSSES. Some repugs won landslides with 60% of the vote. My home town elected a republican mayor with 72% of the vote! The democrats are to blame for this. Bush has a consistent approval rating in the low 30s. But the DEMOCRATIC congress has an approval rating in the mid 20s! Extrapolating this to 100% of votes between two choices, those figures extrapolate a 60-40 split in favor of the repugs, which incidently is the commonly accepted political definition of a landslide.

PROBLEM: People elected democrats to do a job. Nancy Pelosi was elected Speaker to do that job. I was proud of Nancy and proud of myself. Our families both came from Abruzzi, Italy. I love Nancy. But Nancy has become anathema to best interests of the democratic party. Impeachment is off the table. Bush is given everything he asks for: Warrantless wiretapping. Continued support for war in Irak. Continued astronomical funding, thereby giving tacit approval of the torture which that funding supports. Democrats SAY that torture is wrong. But the fact is that they FUND it and APPROVE the wrong people for federal jobs.

FOUR FACTS:
(A) Repug approval in low 30s
(B) Dem approval in mid 20s
(C) Repugs won many local elections in dark blue NY yesterday
(D) Democrats no longer making gains; they are making losses. Those who complacently sit back and expect a democratic victory in Nov 08 should meet responsibility to wake up and smell the coffee.

BOTTOM LINE: Nancy Pelosi is a liability no less than Newt Gingrich, the net result being identical in both cases. If Nancy steps down as Speaker, the party, the nation, and her career would benefit. I like her personally. I wish her well. I support her winning her district. But she is proven anathema to the democratic party. She is not Speaker material. She is not suited for that job.

[Overd0g]

Given that the Dem congress has even lower popularity, perhaps the question should have been: "will the congress suck down the rest of the Dems with it?"

[saer2]

Where has most Americans been? President Bush will continue to take us down this dangerous path unitl he leaves and the extreme right will follow or maybe lead the way happily.


America needs to wake up!!!

[avergejoe]

He is already sucking the country down!

[novowel4me]

Perhaps the Democratic Party leadership has post traumatic stress syndrome dating from 1994. The flashbacks from the trauma of losing power in 1994 has caused them to be indecisive and second guess themselves. Either that or they are still trying to shake off the effects of the "Stockholm" syndrome of life under the GOP. It may take another big win in the next election cycle to generate what my old coach called "intestinal fortitude". In the meantime a lot of folks will die, kids will not have health insurance and the USA's credibility will continue to slide worldwide because corrupt, incompetent leadership is tolerated.

[EileenMac]

Wow! The outpouring of comments on this blog is fantastic. And the name that keeps coming up is ...RON PAUL! Maybe there IS hope for America.

[insanityfollows]

Hear, Hear, Arianna-well said. In response to your last question-Why do the dems keep caving to the republicans? I seriously-I mean seriously believe that some have been threatened in some manner. Blackmail, blackballing, threatened with ruin of their career, and perhaps threatened themselves. In a country where the justice department, the supreme court, and our intelligence agencies have all been politicized, and the writ of habeus corpus has been disposed of, it is certainly conceivable that some of them have been threatened in some manner. I hope I am terribly wrong, but am afraid I am not. I had terrible fears about Pakistan that are bearing themselves out-I wasn't wrong about that, Let's just all pray that I am wrong, and that the Dems will jell!!!!

[gcswift2]

Why is there no commentary on the house vote to investigate Vice President Cheney towards articles of IMPEACHMENT?