New Yorker-The Republican Implosion: Bush "Thinks He's A Monarch, & That's Scary As Hell."

[kpete]

Party Unfaithful
The Republican implosion.
by Jeffrey Goldberg

A former (Republican)Oklahoma congressman, Mickey Edwards , told the magazine that the Bush administration "has shown itself to be completely incompetent" in expanding its power and mismanaging the war in Iraq.

"This administration is beyond the pale in terms of arrogance and incompetence," Edwards, who left Congress in 1993, told The New Yorker. "This guy thinks he's a monarch, and that's scary as hell."

......................

Gingrich said President Bush was unable to positively build on his last election victory because Rove was running a campaign that focused primarily on attacking John Kerry, rather than promoting the president's conservative ideology.

"All he proved was that the anti-Kerry vote was bigger than the anti-Bush vote," Gingrich said.


.................

Viguerie, whose new book is called “Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause,” told me how the conservative movement has been undermined: “It’s not any one thing, but, when you add everything up, what you have is a massive overreach of executive powers, and massive overspending by people who claim they’re conservatives. Every President, with hardly any exceptions, will take as much power as he gets. That’s what Presidents do. Bush has tried more than most. And it was supposed to be the Republicans in Congress who would do oversight of the President, so that he wouldn’t get away with too much abuse of power. But they abdicated that role. It was all about the maintenance of power, and now look where they are.” He continued, “This President has strengths and weaknesses, but he has a major character flaw, and that’s that he will brook no criticism and his people won’t, either. And the whole Party gave in to him on that.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/04/070604fa_fact_goldberg?printable=true

[whistle]

1. King Baby George I

:wtf:

[Cha]

12. No, Caligula.

snip~

"40 CE: Caligula announced his self-deification, building temples and erecting statues, even in Rome, to his glorified self. He even ordered that a statue of himself should be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem and the Jews be forced to worship him (the procurator wisely postponed executing this order, and it had not yet been carried out when Caligula was assassinated). This deification was part of Caligula's apparently systematic concept of imperial power, of what he liked to term his “inflexibility” (called by Robert Graves his “immovable rigor”). Was Caligula clinically insane? Was he the evil monster portrayed by Robert Graves? The ancient sources are uniformly hostile, and modern historians differ in their interpretations of his behavior. It is impossible to answer these questions with any certainty. What we can conclude is that he was carried away by the absolute nature of the power that he had inherited from more hard-working and stable emperors. He seemed to be determined to flaunt that power and to strip away all the pretense and euphemisms in which Augustus (and Tiberius, to a lesser extent) had cloaked it. Caligula's bizarre behavior demonstrates what can happen when absolute power is combined with a total lack of responsibility and respect for others(see Garrett Fagan's biography for a balanced assessment of Caligula)."


http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/caligula.html

[Vincardog]

18. Second that, Caligula son of privilege and crazy as a rabid bat.

Ultimately done in by his own personnel guards.Read it and weep aWoL.

[deutsey]

20. We started with a George who helped defeat a monarchy

and it looks like we're ending with a George restoring it.

:evilfrown:

[Neecy]

2. my god, Rove is as delusional as Bush...

“There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture,” he said. “One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how many people’s principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand.” He went on, “So the power of the computer has made it possible for people to gain greater control over their lives. It’s given people a greater chance to run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur. As a result, it has made us more market-oriented, and that equals making you more center-right in your politics.”

He thinks that having to scrap for an existence on eBay will make you right-wing...speechless.

[Blackhatjack]

3. I've said all along it will take Repubs to bring Bush down, and now it may happen...

The closer we get to the 2008 Election, and the more ominous the polling becomes for Republicans, it will push Republicans to do more than just 'distance themselves' from Bush - they are going to have to come out in repudiation of Bush, his overreaching imperial presidential policies, and his total disaster of the war in Iraq.

Republicans can read polls and the results must be terrifying for 2008.

The question is will Repubs do what is necessary in time to rescue the Repub Party from a massive rout in 2008, or will they sit and hope things will get better while watching the ship go down?

Congressional investigations grind on and new revelations of corruption come out every week.

The public knows the Repubs are keeping Bush and his minions propped up.

Game on.

[Hamlette]

4. "brook no criticism" if you have ever known anyone like that, you know how difficult they are

I know a woman like that and she is a complete disaster.

People tend to think people like that are cocky and self assured but in reality they are seriously ill. I think it fits W to a "T" and explains our problems. It is a serious character flaw and we should make sure we never elect another one (like Rudy?)

[doggyboy]

5. bush's "brook no criticism" is bad

I wonder what they thought of Reagan's "11th Commandment"

IIRC, they all loved "brook no criticism" back then

[Rydz777]

6. I remember reading a press account of Bush working a rope

line when he encountered a man who objected to some policy. "Who cares what you think!" said Bush. That has stuck in my mind throughout the series of disasters - especially the war - that Bush has inflicted on us.

[Buns_of_Fire]

16. That would be Bill Hangley

http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Articles/1097.aspx -- although I've also heard he said this to a young girl, and apparently the rest of the world thinks this is his opinion of the world's citizenry, too ( http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/84839_helenthomas30.shtml ). They're probably all right. It's the sort of thing said sotto voce by a REAL Major League Asshole when he thinks no microphones (or honest reporters) are there to pick it up.

[grasswire]

7. Mother Bush warned Laura about that

She said to the new bride Laura "No one criticizes George W."

So there you are.

He had totalitarian tendencies from the get-go.

[tblue37]

15. Once, after he had given a speech while running for congress in

Texas, he asked Laura's opinion of his speech. When she gently suggested it needed a bit more work, he deliberately drove their car through the garage wall. She says after that she never again offered an opinion on any of his public performances.

[tmlanders]

8. The best managers look for criticism

and alternate views. Well, maybe that is just me. I have also worked for people who "brook no criticism" and have seen how it impacts morale and productivity. The worst of these bad bosses could probably be described as a sociopath, and I think that is a good description of the Impostor, too.

[pat_k]

9. "overreach" = euphemism for High Treason. . .

High treason, broadly defined, is an action which is grossly disloyal to one's country or sovereign. (wikipedia)

In a true America, it is the collective will of the people that is sovereign.

Bush ("the decider," the Pariah in Chief, and self-proclaimed unitary authoritarian executive), Cheney, and their co-conspirators and minions are turning Americans into torturers, spying on us without warrant, committing grave violations of law at whim "to protect" us, and abusing signing statements to "interpret" the laws we pass into oblivion (of which one of the most egregious examples is his nullification of McCain's anti-torture amendment, which passed the Senate 90-9).

They are committing these treasonous acts against our sovereign authority in plain sight.

In our common contract, the Constitution of the United States, we surrendered NONE of our sovereignty to any institution or office we created. We are all subject to the collective authority of We the People (and that includes the elected and appointed government officials who serve with our consent). We created the institutions and offices through which we express our will. We charge officials with certain duties. We dictate the powers delegated and forbidden.

We charge the men and women we elect to Congress with the duty to support and defend that contract. Impeachment and removal is the means by which we defend ourselves against intolerable acts that usurp OUR collective sovereign authority. As the body closest to and most responsive to our will, we gave the House the power to impeach and call on the Senate to remove an official who abuses and betrays us.

Each time Bush and Cheney invoke their fascist fantasy of a unitary authoritarian executive they dare our Representatives to impeach and challenge their treasonous claims. Each day that Members of the House refuse to act, they join Bush and Cheney in their treason by allowing their lies to stand.

[OnionPatch]

10. "All he proved was that the anti-Kerry vote was bigger than the anti-Bush vote,"

Sorry, Newt. When one understands the depth of election fraud that happened in 2004, one know that the anti-Bush vote was much larger than the anti-Kerry vote. And that was with the media on Bush's side! This "majority" the right claims to hold is about as bogus as the free laptop computer I just won at another website.

[glitch]

11. Lol! Thanks for that.

"This "majority" the right claims to hold is about as bogus as the free laptop computer I just won at another website."

[magellan]

13. As long as "overreach" is described as "incompetence"

...BushCo will continue to get away with their crimes.

[EVDebs]

14. GOP learns to sing a Peggy Lee hit "The Party's Over.."

"The party's over
It's time to call it a day
They've burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid"

...yes, the piper must be paid !

[Supersedeas]

17. Nothing to see here: let them have Lohan and Rosie implosions instead

[Kurovski]

19. K&R. (nt)

[AX10]

21. Bush admitted that it would be easier if "this were a dictatorship"!