Just to give some sense of how the GOP is imploding, the following is from a good friend who is career military (officer corps), and a life-long Republican. I won't ID him for obvious reasons, but this is from two recent emails (nothing edited for effect). The first is from a couple of days ago:
On the war, when we went into Iraq, I simply couldn't understand it. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, or nearby, and he was the only enemy who mattered. I could see no reason to take on Iraq, at least no reason that arose from 9/11. As I told British friends at the time (I was in the UK), the invasion was certainly legal, but as for whether it was advisable, well, history would tell us that.
I think that verdict is already in. For a long time, I felt simply awful that we had done this thing, created this chaos, and that it still wasn't put right. We made that mess, and we ought to clean it up. I still feel that way in large part, but I'm beginning to think--with Iraqi Shi'ites fighting Iraqi Sunnis over the Golden Mosque bombing--that we may finally just have to throw up our hands and leave them to their civil war. I thought privately in 2003 that going into Iraq was dodgy, inasmuch as it departed significantly from the Weinberger Doctrine (Caspar Weinberger was Reagan's SecDef). Now, I view Weinberger (and Powell, his most recent exponent) as wholly vindicated. If we leave Iraq now, we must accept full responsibility for the chaos and death that will ensue; and we must never, ever do anything like that again.
If we go now, though, the whole country could easily implode. It could become a giant Somalia, with regional warlords and no central rule. If before the war Iraq was not really a terrorist training state--and I think it's clear now that it never was--certainly, after we leave, it could easily become one.
What a mess--and we made it.
And this from this morning:
It says a lot about our country that Clinton was impeached and Bush has not been. The idea that a sexual indiscretion is more significant that entering a war under false pretenses, flagrantly breaking the law on domestic surveillance, and presiding over an immense squandering of national treasure is, frankly, ludicrous. I had a rather unhealthy personal hatred of Clinton in the 1990s, primarily because he was a draft dodger who had become Commander in Chief. Every US military death in Haiti, in Somalia, in Bosnia was a moral outrage. Now, though, I'm faced with a C-in-C who also evaded meaningful service and has ordered thousands to die in a war based on a lie. Clinton balanced the budget; Bush broke it.
Pretty much says it all, eh? These are the folks we need to convince to take the next step, and vote their conscience, now that they see the light of reason. I'm doing my part, and I'm reasonably sure that my friend will be voting for Dems come November. Maybe he'll persuade some others.