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Alberto Gonzales said that he had was not involved in discussions about the firing of attorneys who, let's be honest, were obviously fired for political reasons. It turns out that he was. Already, he was presiding over an office that was abusing its former employees and not behaving the way we would like our AGs office to behave, but now we've got some pretty direct lying involved. Too bad he wasn't under oath.
I would say that this is finally evidence that the Bush administration is corrupt from top to bottom. The thing is, most of us paying attention have been firmly convinced of that for a long time.
Alas, those paying attention find themselves with no options other than the Democratic party. And, I guarantee you, if we get a Democratic congress and a Democratic president, and they stay in power for some time, they will get used to it and behave in a generally "I can do no wrong" manner (much as they did back with the whole "bounced check" scandal and others back in the early-mid 90's). We really need more than one viable political party, and despite their continuing popularity, I don't at the moment consider the Republicans viable.
We need a party for people who like some of the ostensible values of the Republican party, but who, particularly with the advent of the unmitigated disaster that is the Bush administration, realized that "their" party has become a corrupt mess interested in-- well, it's not really clear what, other than playing the game of being in power, but only pushing the agenda any more of the extreme religious right.
I propose that this party be called RUB, or "Republicans Until Bush." If people are paying attention, Bush will be responsible for deRepublicanizing more Republicans than even Herbert Hoover.
Comments
I personally love the idea of a third viable political party. Having only two options with no viable opposition isn't what I'd call an ideal state of affairs in a democracy. If competition improves markets for goods and services, why can't it improve the market for political leaders?
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | March 24, 2007 9:52 AM
Umm, I don't mean to flame, and I can't agree more that the Republicans are a currupt disaster. But the Republicans have been corrupt long before Bush II. So sure, let's have a party which represents conservative values without the corruption, but let's avoid the implication that its corruption *began* with Bush (maybe flourished is a better word).
In a similar vein, it might be nice to have a party which truely represents liberal values. The Democrats don't cut it.
Posted by: anon | March 24, 2007 12:39 PM
A single vote is like a blog with few readers. It's not going to change anything, but it can be a wonderful source of self-expression.
I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I find it liberating to vote for third parties now and then. This past November I voted for the Green Party candidate for governor of California. Arnold already had the election wrapped up as Democrats committed suicide in the primary. I felt bad, but then the Green Party candidate got his view on immigration to me somehow. He was for open borders, period. I like that. It's the beauty of being an extremist that one can take a simple principle and not worry about practical consequences. It's that way for the left or the right.
I've noticed how much mileage I get from that one vote. The Minutemen regularly picket near where I volunteer helping the needy, since some of those needy are illegal immigrants. I guess the Minutemen think we should make such clients wear placards advertising their criminal existence, maybe a Mexican flag sewn to their clothes or tattoed to their forearms. Somehow this doesn't bother me as much knowing that I made a clear vote about that issue.
My congressional district is so heavily Republican that there often is no Democratic candidate. So I vote Libertarian, as extremist as their rhetoric is in a way I don't like. That way I root in a tangible way for Republicans who are similarly in favor of gutting all regulation to become Libertarians, leaving both those parties weak. Karl Menninger made clear in his writings that false hope is better than no hope at all. I don't mind living the truth of that.
Then if you insist on supporting moderation, there's always Unity08.com. I'm not sure yet if there's something pragmatic about them or if this is the most quixotic position of all. I know I can go either way.
Posted by: DavidD | March 24, 2007 2:27 PM
I've said before that the only way true conservatives will ever get back into power is to bolt the GOP to form a third party, because the neocons have destroyed the name of the Republicans. Now, in American history, most third parties are hopelessly quixotic. The few exceptions, however, have happened when one of the existing parties had just such a meltdown. In those cases a third party not only gained power, but eventually replaced the defunct party. (Which is how we managed to get from Whigs and Tories to Democrats and Republicans....)
Posted by: David Harmon | March 24, 2007 8:16 PM
Be careful what you wish for! Here in Canada we have several parties and none are any more able to articulate their TRUE position on any subject. The result is a mad rush to avoid the hot button issues and to appeal to the centre voters (the real majority) until such time that you have enough seats to do whatever you damn well please. Luckily we are currently under a minority government of four parties with some strength and are experiencing a rare phenomenon in politics: compromise!
Posted by: Dennis Rutledge | March 25, 2007 11:09 AM
And Janet Reno and Ashcroft were models of integrity? Cut Gonzalez some slack, he's just following in the footsteps of his predecessors.
Posted by: Lab Lemming | March 25, 2007 10:53 PM
The "bounced check" scandal is really your counterexample for Democratic corruption? Do you think it really compares to the USA firings on any level?
Posted by: Wild Goose | March 26, 2007 2:33 AM
Rob
Maybe you should look into Unity 08, here --
http://www.unity08.com/
Posted by: Wayne McCoy | March 26, 2007 2:40 PM
I'd be very interested to learn which of the "ostensible values of the Republican party" you would like to support.
Because I suspect, at least for those whose paragons of Republicanism are not Tom Delay or Rick Santorum types, that in fact many of the Republican values that they support are actually mainstream values of the Democratic party as well. It's easy to say that "they're all corrupt" or that if the Democrats achieved full power, they would be as corrupt as the Republicans. At this point in time, though, the Republicans are clearly far more corrupt than the Democrats, and it's not quite fair to indict a party for corruption that they have not (yet) engaged in.
So please share your Republican values, and why you think that the Democrats don't provide a good option for someone with those values.
Posted by: Alex R | March 27, 2007 1:54 PM
I second the request by Alex R, to "please share your Republican values, and why you think that the Democrats don't provide a good option for someone with those values".
Posted by: Mike | March 27, 2007 5:50 PM
Weren't we just sounding the death-knell for the Democrats a few years ago? It's probably a little early to be calling the game now. I've been a Republican voter in the past, but anymore, I find myself unable to throw my support whole-heartedly behind any party's candidate. I end up either voting against the other guy or in favor of one candidate's position on a particular issue.
Probably no way to run a railroad, but it's the best I've got.
Posted by: Steve | March 28, 2007 3:12 PM
RUB! An excellent idea! Seriously, this is what the remaining Bush loyalists do not get. They conflate opposition to Bush with extreme leftism. They are absolutely blind to what is happening and why it is happening.
Posted by: Dr X | March 28, 2007 5:38 PM
What I find troubling about today's Republican party is that I have no recollection of the party as any other way. Being born in the early eighties, I remember little if anything of the Reagan presidency, and Bush Sr. I remember mostly from the first Gulf War. Then it was the Republican held Congress which shut down the government in 96 and impeached the president in 98.
Not as if the Republicans record on science issues from the creationist cases of 83 and 87 can attest to. I have only know a Republican party beholden to moralizing religious zealots and tax cuts for corporations.
Care to enlighten a youngester of the "good old days" of the Grand Old Party...
Posted by: MTW | March 28, 2007 5:52 PM
If people are paying attention, Bush will be responsible for deRepublicanizing more Republicans than even Herbert Hoover.
Bush certainly deRepublicanized me.
I have come to the conclusion that political parties are substantially different than their associated political philosophies. Parties are concerned with power, philosophies are concerned with ideas.
Adherents of political philosophies use political parties to put their ideas into action, but they tend to become corrupted to the extent that they focus on the political process as an end, rather than means to an end.
For example, Republicans who rode into Washington in '94 on a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the pork-laden Democratic Congress quickly found that pork projects were necessary to getting re-elected, you know, to "promote conservative values." When they got a President who would sign anything they passed into law, they really went crazy, and all pretense of economic responsibility went right out the window.
Posted by: Decline and Fall | March 28, 2007 7:32 PM
Posted by: llewelly | March 29, 2007 1:04 PM
For those who are still interested, Glenn Greenwald has written an interesting, related piece in today's Salon. It begins:
David Brooks' column in The New York Times this morning contains several important observations. It would maximize clarity in our political discussions if journalists could just ingest Brooks' central point: the dominant right-wing political movement in this country that has spawned and driven the Bush presidency has nothing to do with -- it is in fact overtly hostile to -- the ostensible principles of Goldwater/Reagan small-government conservatism. Though today's so-called "conservatives" exploit the Goldwater/Reagan mythology as a political prop, they don't believe in those principles in any way. That movement is the very antithesis of those principles.
Worth considering for those unfamiliar with the attacks on Bush from the Right.
Posted by: Decline and Fall | March 29, 2007 5:51 PM
I used to be an Independent, pretty much with a capital I. Recent Republican behavior has been so bad I am now an anti-Republican, which looks for the forseable future to mean Democrat. I do hear you, having one party implode is not healthy, although in this case I think that is our best hope. If it does implode, after a few years a new synthesis will be put together.
I don't remember the paper -or the exact reasoning behind it, but it is claimed that our first past the post democracies natural state is two party. Parlimentary systems natural state seems to be 3 to 5 parties, which most of us would consider to be a better outcome. But being the first (modern) democracy we didn't have the benefit of our lesson. Those who came latter largely choose the better parlimentary system.
Posted by: bigTom | March 30, 2007 10:10 PM
I am all for third (fourth, fifth, etc) parties, but I do not think that corruption on that level happens just because a party "gets used to power". It takes a specific combination of mentalities which we have the misfortune to have come together in the Bush administration: authoritarian, social controllers, "conservatives without conscience", as John Dean calls them. Oh, do check out Bob Altemeyer's new (free, online) book on authoritarianism, if you haven't yet...;)
Posted by: Jorg | April 1, 2007 2:47 AM
Attached is a link to an article in todays Washington Post about another Republican who is fed up with Dubya and the f***ing born agains who have hijacked the GOP.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040101211.html
Posted by: SLC | April 2, 2007 9:01 AM
Lots of thoughtful comments here. And I certainly agree that a multi-party system is preferable to a two-party system, but my reasons might be outside the scope of this discussion.
Rob, would you characterize yourself as a non-movement Conservative? If you had to answer in one paragraph, how would you describe your politics?
I ask because there's no decoupling Bush from the Conservative Movement. He's never been anything more than an empty suit for the movement - pushing as many pet movement ideas as he can, as far as he can, as long as he can; adherence to conservative ideology superseding expertise, facts, and reality; lack of restraint in his pursuit of the movement's goals, etc.
Those who claim to dislike Bush, but to also be "true Conservatives" like Buckley or Goldwater are either misunderstanding their own politics or are simply dishonest. Bush has attempted to position the Conservative Movement so that it can implement its end-game goals with regard to the state-society relationship. It appears that he has failed*, but for a while it looked as if he was coming very close.
*Though it will take several years of dedicated energy simply to undo the harm that the Conservative Movement has wrought over the last six-plus years.
Posted by: Nathan | April 6, 2007 3:41 PM