Unbelievably, the nasty Bush strategy of calling dissenters "unpatriotic" is now aimed at the diehard loyal Bush base. Bush is 'selling' the immigration bill by hurling insults at his base. The 30% who are still with the Commander Guy are about to run for the hills. It's anybody's guess what George W. Bush is thinking, ooops, I forgot, he doesn't do that.
The conservative darling and Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan says Dubya has finally broken the back of his party. He has "sundered the party" and "broke his coalition into pieces" -- and now it's just so ovah for the Republican Party!
If you enjoy seeing rightwingers eat their own, this one is a must read.
President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder:
Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place. . .
For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. . .
The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."
Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement. . .
What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks. . .
Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.
Read the whole thing . .
Bush Madman Republican Party Peggy Noonan Politics Psycho Bush News Immigration Lindsey Graham
