Do they want to lose?

A about a week ago Peggy Noonan had a piece in the WSJ lamenting the fact that the Republican candidates can't distance themselves from Bush and win the primary. I thought this was interesting:

The GOP challengers, no matter how they feel about Mr. Bush, can't knock him, because that would infuriate the president's 20% in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere.

The exception is Ron Paul, who seems to have no fear of criticizing anybody, and, this week, John McCain, who in the debate had some sharp words for the current reality: "The American people no longer have trust or confidence in our government. Our failure at Katrina, our failures in Iraq, our failures to get spending under control. And we've got to restore that trust and confidence." That sounded like the beginning of a little rebellion.

I suspect the Republican establishment knows all this, but I am not sure it concerns them overmuch. Why should it? If you are an absolute Bush partisan, you probably don't really want a Republican to follow him and potentially, in decisions if not in words, rebuke him. That would be the worst thing, not being followed by Hillary or Obama. If the latter happens, the outgoing administration can--and will--blame the loss on lax candidates, on a party that wasn't sufficiently inclusive, on congressional scandals, on immigration. "If only they'd followed our lead!"

I thought at the time there might be some truth in that.

Digby has a post over at The Big Con where she suggests that the Politicos of the Christian Taliban might want a Republican loss in 2008 as well.

But assuming that they haven't lost their moorings completely, it is far more likely, as John Stokes impressively laid out here, that they know the Republicans are going to lose this election and are planning for the future.

Viguerie especially plays the long game. He has played it so often that we know this caterwauling about being betrayed by the GOP is a schtick he uses for fundraising and increasing the lucrative sense of victimization that so animates the far right. He knows better than anyone that losing is sometimes better for business than winning. Two steps forward one step back is an excellent way to keep his people nervous --- and generous.

This insightful article by Adele Stan in The American Prospect lays out what I think is the likeliest strategy among these Conservative Religious pooh-bahs. They've been here before:

...Dobson and his ilk, who, despite their threat, are far less likely to walk out of the Republican Party than they are to force a religious-right agenda on a mainstream candidate like Giuliani, just as they did with Bob Dole in 1996.

The outcome of the radical-right platform that Dole was saddled with -- and a consequently right-wing, televised national convention -- was a resounding loss for the Republican Party, but a victory for the right.

A calculation had been made that then-President Bill Clinton was virtually unbeatable, as New Right architect Paul Weyrich revealed in the double-super-secret-background speech he delivered before the Council on National Policy (CNP) on the eve of the Republican Convention. In 2008, the right could simultaneously accept Giuliani as the G.O.P. candidate while deliberately wounding him so as to make his election improbable.

In gaining control of the platform and convention agenda by threatening to bolt the party in 1996, the right positioned itself strongly for the next contest. George W. Bush did not have to be led to the religious right; nor did any of the other Republican candidates in 2000. They knew the score; they played ball from the outset.

Right-wing leaders may find themselves considering a similar scenario today. Should Giuliani become the G.O.P. nominee, the religious right will seek to exact its pound of flesh, even if it means that the Democrats (yes, even the other Clinton), win the presidency. The betting could be that whomever wins the White House in 2008, whether Republican or Democrat, stands an excellent chance of being a one-termer, what with the economy on the verge of tanking and the war an intractable mess. Add in one good natural disaster, and the reins of power could prove slippery. Let a liberal woman preside over the mess, perhaps the thinking goes, and you could enjoy a subsequent 16 years of religious-right, male leadership after her four years run out.

There are many Republicans who know that Bush has made such a mess of things that no president of either party will be able to straighten it out in four years and will possibly be a one term president. It would be worthwhile for the Bush cultists, neocons and theocons to lose in 2008 so they could take control again in 2012. It might just work. We have already seen that the Democratic congress has been unable to stop George W. Bush and their approval has suffered. If the Democratic president can't undo in four years what it took Bush eight years to do it would certainly present an opportunity for the Republicans in 2012.

The Surge as a snooze button

Bush cultist site Austin Bay Blog has a post on the two clocks in Iraq - as we have heard before there is the Iraqi clock and the US political clock. Now many if not most realize the US political clock is going to run out first. Of course the Bush cultists blame the US political clock for the defeat instead of the flaming incompetence of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld which has made the occupation of Iraq last longer than WW I, WW II and Korea.

One of the commenters points out that the clock has already run out.

They are not going to succeed. The reason that the other clocks are seen as speeding up is the now widely held perception that Iraq is a hopeless case. And not just Iraq — the WHOLE ARAB MIDDLE EAST is viewed in that light. More and more people just don’t think they are worth any effort at all. Plan “A” has failed. The difficulty is that there is no Plan “B”. Just a future Plan ‘Z’ which looms like Banquo’s Ghost over the whole debate. Never to be mentioned in polite company until one day there is is in all its starkness.

The clocks are not counting down to a set date. The alarm has already gone off and now all that is happening is that everyone has hit the ’snooze’ button’ just to delay the inevitable.
Not change the inevitable; just delay it for a ’seemly’ period.

Of course that "'seemly' period" would be until January 2009 when the next president takes over.

Lies - Scandals - Incompetence

Very few Americans want to return to the feudal society of 15th century Europe. That said the current Republican party should not be able to win any elections. But of course they do. They do it with lies and scandalous activities. Today in his commentary Paul Krugman addresses the lies.
Sweet Little Lies

Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can’t picture their leaders being dishonest about such things.

But there’s another political lesson I don’t think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie — the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren’t meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong.

For a long time, basically from 9/11 until the last remnants of President Bush’s credibility drowned in New Orleans, the Bush administration was able to go big on its deceptions. Most people found it inconceivable that an American president would, for example, assert without evidence that Saddam and Al Qaeda were allies. Mr. Bush won the 2004 election because a quorum of voters still couldn’t believe he would grossly mislead them on matters of national security.

Before 9/11, however, the right-wing noise machine mainly relied on little lies. And now it has returned to its roots.

The Clinton years were a parade of fake scandals: Whitewater, Troopergate, Travelgate, Filegate, Christmas-card-gate. At the end, there were false claims that Clinton staff members trashed the White House on their way out.

Each pseudoscandal got headlines, air time and finger-wagging from the talking heads. The eventual discovery in each case that there was no there there, if reported at all, received far less attention. The effect was to make an administration that was, in fact, pretty honest and well run — especially compared with its successor — seem mired in scandal.

As Krugman points out even when the lies are shown to be lies the damage is done and the press that was quick to report them is slow to report that they were indeed lies. The Republican lie machine could not work with out the aid of the so called liberal press.

With the now infamous Attorney Purge the little lies are becoming scandals. We return to the New York Times.
Another Layer of Scandal

As Congress investigates the politicization of the United States attorney offices by the Bush administration, it should review the extraordinary events the other day in a federal courtroom in Wisconsin. The case involved Georgia Thompson, a state employee sent to prison on the flimsiest of corruption charges just as her boss, a Democrat, was fighting off a Republican challenger. It just might shed some light on a question that lurks behind the firing of eight top federal prosecutors: what did the surviving attorneys do to escape the axe?

Ms. Thompson, a purchasing official in the state’s Department of Administration, was accused by the United States attorney in Milwaukee, Steven Biskupic, of awarding a travel contract to a company whose chief executive contributed to the campaign of Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat. Ms. Thompson said the decision was made on the merits, but she was convicted and sent to prison before she could appeal.

The prosecution was a boon to Mr. Doyle’s opponent. Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads that purported to tie Ms. Thompson’s “corruption” to Mr. Doyle. Ms. Thompson was sentenced shortly before the election, which Governor Doyle won.

The Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit seemed shocked by the injustice of her conviction. It took the extraordinary step of releasing Ms. Thompson from prison immediately after hearing arguments, without waiting to issue a ruling. One of the judges hinted that Ms. Thompson may have been railroaded. “It strikes me that your evidence is beyond thin,” Judge Diane Wood told the lawyer from Mr. Biskupic’s office.

Ms. Thompson’s case is not the only one raising questions about whether prosecutors tried last year to tilt close elections toward the Republicans. New Jersey’s federal prosecutor conducted an investigation of weak-looking allegations against Senator Robert Menendez that was used in Republican ads.

Congress should look into both cases to determine whether partisan politics played a role — and whether they were coordinated with anyone at the Justice Department or the White House.

The first question many of us asked when the eight attorneys were fired was what about the 85 that didn't get fired? It is looking like this was an excellent question. It may be more important to investigate the attorneys who were allowed to stay - the "loyal Bushies".

The only upside to all of this is that an incompetent president has surrounded himself with equally incompetent people. The result is that all of this scandal has seen the light of day. Of course we have also seen the downside with the Katrina disaster and the cadre of young unskilled cultists who were sent to Iraq and made a bad situation worse.

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The Cultist

The Washington Post has a piece on Monica Goodling this morning that paints a picture of another Christian Soldier and cultist turned Bush loyalist. A graduate of Evangelical basic training and Pat Robertson's advanced training for young wingnuts who rose rapidly in the Bush administration because of loyalty.
Bush Loyalist Rose Quickly at Justice

Part of a generation of young religious conservatives who swept into the federal government after the election of President Bush in 2000, Goodling displayed unblinking devotion to the administration and expected others to do the same. When she started at Justice, "no job was too small for her," and as she moved rapidly up the ranks, none "was too large," Corallo said.

"She was the embodiment of a hardworking young conservative who believed strongly in the president and his mission," said David Ayres, former chief of staff to Bush's first attorney general, John D. Ashcroft.

This week, Goodling, 33, became the most prominent federal official to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before Congress since Lt. Col. Oliver L. North refused to answer questions -- until he received immunity -- during the 1986 Iran-contra hearings.

Goodling, now on an indefinite leave, most recently served as senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and as Justice's liaison to the White House. Her name appears on several e-mails about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are eager to ask her about those dismissals.

Explaining why she invoked her right against self-incrimination, her lawyer, John M. Dowd, called the investigation "hostile" and said that some committee members "have already reached conclusions."

So what was her mistake? According to her fellow cultists it wasn't what she did.

To her supporters, Goodling's only mistake -- if she made one at all -- was not anticipating the political peril before the 2006 midterm elections.

"The young conservatives who came off the campaign and were new to town with this administration, they've never seen lean times," said a veteran Republican political appointee who declined to be quoted by name saying anything critical of Goodling. "They had no appreciation for what would happen after the Democrats took control and how tough it would be."

So the only mistake she made was the same one Harold Meyerson talked about, she didn't recognize that things had changed.

The real mistake that Ms Goodling and many other young Republican Christians have made is they fail to recognize that the Pat Robertsons, Gerry Falwells and James Dobsons are not about spirituality or Jesus but about pure political power. Hence their unholy aliance with the Bush administration. Perhaps Ms Goodling needs a little jail time so she can find the real Jesus and discover what he taught and stood for.

More on Monica Goodling here.

Update
Rational Republican John Cole has a must read post on this:
Thank God For Chuck Schumer

Two Headlines

We have two headlines this morning that say it all.

1. Snow disputes claim that Iraq is blunder

   WASHINGTON - The White House on Sunday disagreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's claim that the Iraq war was "the worst foreign policy mistake" in U.S. history.
   
   White House press secretary Tony Snow said it was important to remove Saddam Hussein from power and noted that a majority of senators voted in 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
   
   He said President Bush should not see votes in Congress in opposition of his new Iraqi strategy as a rebuke.
   
   "The strategy has barely had a chance to begin working," Snow said.



2. 2 Baghdad car bombs kill 56, injure 127

   BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two car bombs exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 56 people and injuring scores in the deadliest attack since U.S. and Iraqi forces began a major security push around the capital last week.
   
   The twin blasts — which tore through the open-air market in the mostly Shiite district of New Baghdad — marked the first major response by militants to the sweep launched last week and a sobering reminder of the huge challenges facing any efforts against the well-armed factions.
   
   The death toll was reported by police and ambulance service officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. At least 127 people were injured, they reported.
   
   [......]
   
   The U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers, one of them in Baghdad who was killed when an insurgent hurled a grenade at his vehicle. The other soldier died when a patrol came under fire north of Baghdad, the statement said. Both died Saturday.

The new surge, just like all the old surges, cannot heal 1400 years of Shiite-Sunni hostilities that were set free when the US "blundered" into Iraq. If starting a war that has destabilized the region and is sucking the life's blood out of our military is not a blunder I don't know what is.

Meanwhile watch the ad and read Glenn Greenwald's post on General Odom taking brain dead Bush cultist Hugh Hewitt to the woodshed.