OK, so David "Wild Man" Broder suddenly thinks an Internet-based, third party movement is a brilliant and eminently mainstream idea.
Well, duh. Whatever.
So they're having a Big Bipartisan Serious Person's Kumbaya Love-In for America, only this time the people attending aren't Dirty Fucking Hippies or pajama-wearing, mom's-basement-bound shut-ins or Vinnies in the Bronx. No, no! They're Very Serious People. You can tell because you'll only have to look about half of them up on Wikipedia.
Sam Nunn. Chuck Robb. David Boren. Gary Hart. Chuck Hagel. Bill Brock. John Danforth. Christie Todd Whitman. Bill Cohen. Alan Dixon. Bob Graham. Jim Leach. Susan Eisenhower. David Abshire. Edward Perkins.
Yowza! It's like a rave, but it's all grey flannel and smells faintly of BenGay.
But you can tell it's Good for America by the fact that there are not one, but two letters there: D and R! It's automatically jam-packed with U.S.A.-ey goodness!
Now, why it makes just oh-so-much sense to answer the Republican-led cliff dive into corruption and anti-constitutionalism by giving Republicans only half a cookie, I just don't know. It's just the point where Teh Stupid starts. There's plenty more where that came from.
Like, how many times are we supposed to fall for this "Maverick Republican" thing? That there are "Straight Talkers" out there who are gonna steer the GOP ship back on course, if we'll all just sit back and hand over the keys, don't mind that stale whiff of gin.
Eight years ago, John McCain played the role and banked his bid for the presidency on it. Now he's hugging the man who told South Carolinians that he had a "black love child," and showing how "safe" Baghdad is... with 100 troops surrounding him and 5 choppers overhead.
And about as long ago, Rudy Giuliani was the "moderate" Republican mayor of True Blue New York City. Law and order? Well yeah, sure. But socially liberal! Acceptable! The "good kind!" Now, he's not only gone proto-fascist on us, but it turns out his candidacy is every bit the seedy embarrassment the Bernie Kerik Homeland Security nomination was.
Eight (or so) short years from Go-It-Alone "moderates" to neocon caricatures who'd squeeze themselves right into Bush's skivvies if he'd let them.
No, no! But these Republicans are to-o-o-o-o-o-tally different! Cuz they're for "unity" and whatnot!
You know, "unity." Which we only just discovered we really needed, as digby points out:
Isn't it funny that these people were nowhere to be found when George W. Bush seized office under the most dubious terms in history, having been appointed by a partisan supreme court majority and losing the popular vote? If there was ever a time for a bunch of dried up, irrelevant windbags to demand a bipartisan government you'd think it would have been then, wouldn't you? (How about after 9/11, when Republicans were running ads saying Dems were in cahoots with Saddam and bin Laden?)
I can still hear the stinging rebukes from Danforth, Whitman, Cohen, et al. I remember it like I was making it up yesterday.
Yes, these "stalwarts" of the GOP are here to save America, having lost their fight to save (the Republican) half of it, and finding themselves kicked to the curb or turned out to pasture along the way. But don't worry! Everyone knows that jobs get easier the bigger the get! You'll feel more united in 90 days, or your money back!
And after all, it is your money, they'll helpfully remind you. That's something digby knows, too:
[T]he point cannot be missed that when the GOP was in power they spent like drunken sailors and now that the Democrats have the congress the elders are suddenly up in arms about spending. That will, of course, become the new mantra if a Democrat becomes president and the political establishment decides that the government must "get something done"
Whoops! Government spending! Just noticed! Well, never too early to get started "getting things done," right? Let's jump right in!
Can't decide between redeploying from Iraq or staying? How about we stay, then?
Can't decide between cutting taxes or getting the top 1% of earners to chip in a little more? How about we cut taxes then?
Can't decide between ending corporate welfare and lobbying culture or "investing in American industry?" Say, what if we just invested in American industry, then? Wouldn't that be nice?
You see, we've got to compromise. Come together in the middle. Wasn't that satisfying? Don't you feel unified? You're so reasonable! Not like those other people! Thanks for working with us. It was really civil, wasn't it?
I can hardly wait. Backwards, to the future!