John Cole:
Instead of forging a permanent coalition, he destroyed the party from within with internecine warfare, and his gutter politics now leave behind a bitter and broken GOP, with differing factions that at best distrust each other, at worst, despise each other (I am actively rooting for a rout of the GOP in the Presidential election in 2008, and voted for Democrats in 2006). Rove’s key to success, his willingness to viciously attack his opponents, was also the key to his and the Republican’s downfall. If he and this administration had stuck to waging their nasty wars against only Democrats and people external to the GOP, I doubt we would be having this conversation. But they couldn’t, because they had no real principles- just issues to win the next little political victory as they moved onward, damned whoever gets in their way. As such, there is no real party left. All the alleged principles are gone- there are no core “conservative beliefs” left- those were all picked off one by one for some short term political victory or another.
All that is left is a broken GOP, an ascendant Democratic party, and an empty suit of a President with no track record of accomplishment and a disastrous war to manage. “Mission Accomplished,” I guess.
Andrew Sullivan:
Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war - and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.
Over at Open Left Mike Lux takes on the DLC and does a damned good job - yes, they really are irrelevant.
Because they have never built a mass base for their style of centrism, their entire operation has, by its nature, relied almost entirely on corporate elites for its financial support. As a result, the DLC-style of centrism is a quintessentially big business-style of centrism. That's why their pollsters, principally Mark Penn, whose main clientele is also big business, are so determined to never find any evidence of populism among the electorate. In fact, many of their financial supporters are not Democrats at all.
And things are going just great in Iraq:
Dozens killed in multiple suicide attacks in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Suicide bombings in a northern Iraqi town Tuesday targeted a religious minority and left at least 120 people dead and 150 wounded, according to police officials, who said there were three bombings in three locations.
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