Advance Indiana has a post on Victor Gold’s book entitled Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP. AI’s description of the book captures most of my uneasiness with the Republican Party, particularly on the federal level and particularly over the past decade or so.
Gold is (was?) a family friend of the Bushes and was a co-author of Bush the Elder’s “auto”biography. So, Gold is probably not pre-disposed to bash Republicans. And yet:
Gold’s beef with the younger Bush’s administration can be summed up as follows: “Under Bush and Cheney, he argues, the GOP has moved away from principles of small government, prudent foreign policy and leaving people alone to live their private lives — all views Gold associates with his hero, Goldwater.” “[His book] makes plain Gold’s contempt for the direction of his party and the guidance of its leaders.” “For all the Rove-built facade of his being a ‘strong’ chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times,” Gold writes. “Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots.” “The war was a big factor.” “It seemed to Gold to run counter to the traditionally conservative notion of keeping clear of foreign entanglements.” “He was infuriated by Bush-Cheney moves to augment executive power.” “And he was disgusted by the Terri Schiavo episode, which to this old libertarian seemed emblematic of a modern GOP takeover by religious zealots.”
All of these Bushies or ex-Bushies coming out of the woodwork now to bash W., such as Gold & Matthew Dowd, is all well & good…but weren’t their complaints about him, neo-cons, & right-wing Christian fundamentalists equally available to them back in 2004, when they might have actually done something to prevent a continuation of the W. disaster??? I’ll give them a pass on the 2000 election, but did they really think by 2004 that between W. & John Kerry, W. was the lesser of two evils? I find that so hard to believe. At least Paul O’Neill didn’t wait until W. was safely re-elected before coming out & telling the truth about him. These complaints now are a day late & a dollar short…I used to consider myself a political independent but, like you, I have lost almost all “faith” in the GOP over the last 10-15 years. That’s pushed me squarely into the D column, although there are a few R’s I’ll still vote for (ex. Lugar) but they’re very, very few & far in between.
Lugar lost me during the John Bolton confirmation. It was clear to most everyone that Bolton was wrong for the job. But Lugar just couldn’t manage to oppose him.
I agree, I lost a lot of respect for Lugar for letting Bolton sail through, especially since Lugar evidently does not like him at all in part because Bolton helped cut funding for Lugar-Nunn Act reduction of nuclear materials in the ex-USSR. But given Lugar’s entire body of work (especially on foreign policy) I’m still supportive, for the most part…