I am not an expert here...
but, just for a second, let me give my best shot at illuminating what's going on inside the heads of our the current leaders of our government. And maybe explain the enduring appeal of the Bush Administration and the Republican Party despite what is obvious to most of us...
that they have run our country into the ground, and have not thought through the grave consequences of their actions and policies.
Deep, deep down inside the Republican mind is it's founding reflex...
the amazing core computer that allows folks like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to persevere in their utterly failed policies despite all evidence and reality to the contrary:
it goes back to 1980 and the campaign of Ronald Reagan and the core myth that he promulgated:
"The answers are all simple. We are still, regardless of evidence to the contrary, the one great and central nation on earth. There is absolutely no need for ambiguity, relativism or compromise. In fact, those qualities are un-American."
This is the fuel that feeds those smiling faces that shill for the Republican Party on the morning talk shows...it's the spike in Karen Hughes' coffee...utter certitude in one's own moral rectitude and ultimate moral victory.
Friends, I've long felt that the Bush Administration is articulating policies and strategies as if they had no clue or care about what history will think of them. Launching a pre-emptive "crusade" in the Middle East on a hunt for WMD that did not exist and with no real plan for what to do once we've "won" is the kind of thing you attempt only if you are:
a) dead sure you are right, or
b) don't have a clue how you will be judged if you aren't and you fail
I have now come the conclusion, however, that Bush and the Republican's ARE executing policy with history in mind...however, it is for a history that will never be written, because the "future" it represents will never come to pass...and never was going to come to pass.
Deep inside the Republican mind...they live in the space of Ronald Reagan's Dream...
a future concocted in 1980 at a time of national doubt and fear. A comforting Norman Rockwell throwback spun out to comfort 'white, christian america' that, despite VietNam, the hostage crisis and "malaise", all was basically well at home and abroad, that some things are certain...that we need not doubt ourselves or our cause, and anything that seems to contradict that reality...
global warming, Muslim discontent, European disagreement, gay love, abortion, moral relativism and political compromise, trysting in the White House, 9/11...
can be written off as the failure of morally corrupt minds. In short, in the language that Ashcroft and Bush embrace, these evils can be blamed on the Devil. In the language they use in public...these wrongs can be blamed on wishy washy, flip flopping Democrats and thier friends around the world who coddle tyrants and thugs. I say this with all seriousness, and, sadly, because it's true.
This approach has some amazing advantages. Political unity. Easy explanations for everything. Courage in taking bold action. Lack of need to accept responsibility for failures and debts. And most of all, the ability to brazenly demonize anyone who seems to oppose you.
This, of course, is the most galling aspect of it. Reagan's dream of an abortion-free, heterosexual, christian America standing tall atop a world that loves and worships it has bred a political culture of unparallelled vituperativeness and vindictiveness.
We've gotten so used to it...so accustomed to this way of doing things that we now take it for granted...
friends...they IMPEACHED Bill Clinton...they took Bush v. Gore and ran to the the right wing with zero compromise...Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are running this country and hijacking our Democracy and we can only stand on the sidelines and point out that we won the popular vote in 2000. For shame!
But...
...not every Republican thinks this way...and not every American does either.
And history will not be written from the point of view of Reagan's dream...it will be written in the brutal, petty, sanctimonious world that Bush and Cheney have created.
Our job is to stand up to this...our job is to refuse to be demonized, and stand proud with the courage of our convictions in the brotherhood and sisterhood with the folks who make up the REAL America...we need to be strong enough to point out that compromise and cooperation are how mature powers stay great, and how, at the end of the day, we all WILL get along.
There is only one kind of history that Republicans will understand, however, and that is the kind of history written on election day. There has never been a moment in our history as a nation when one Party needed an ass whupping as much as the Republican's need one now...
friends, our job is to give them that ass whupping.
Get angry, but get even...
and never forget to keep your eyes on the prize.