Much Taller In Person

Wee, Pat Buchanan comes out a swingin' at old Georgie boy & his Neo-con pals! Me loves a good old fashioned 'fight for the soul of the party'!

Indeed, since 9/11, the party has indulged in a willful self-delusion that it has become America's Party. The Bush triumph in 2004, talking heads brayed, settled the matter: Red State America has triumphed over Blue State America. The future belongs to us.

Yes, Republicans were 'America's Party' the same way that the Dallas Cowboys and/or the Atlanta Braves are 'America's Teams': it's a line from the marketing department that gets repeated until folks start to believe it (every marketers' dream)

This was always hyperbole. Where Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan rolled up 49-state landslides in re-election runs, Bush won 31 states, losing every state north of the Potomac and east of Ohio, two of the three great industrial states of the Midwest, Michigan and Illinois, and he was skunked on the Pacific rim. Had Kerry hammered him on trade and lost jobs in Ohio, Bush would be a one-term president.

Sounds like Pat has the same dreams I do!

What killed the first Bush presidency and is ruining the second is the abandonment of Reaganism and his embrace of the twin heresies of neoconservatism and Big Government Conservatism, as preached by the resident ideologues at The Weekly Standard and Wall Street Journal.

[snip]

Under Bush II, social spending has exploded to levels LBJ might envy, foreign aid has been doubled, pork-at-every-meal has become the GOP diet of choice, surpluses have vanished, and the deficit is soaring back toward 5% of GDP. Bill Clinton is starting to look like Barry Goldwater.

Oh, oh Pat: you do make a girl's head spin! More, more! Tell me more!!! There's plently more actually and Pat takes no prisoners... too bad I find Buchanan so loathesome.

Story: once ran into Pat at a 7-11 in McLean Virginia near my old office... and he's much, much taller than I would have ever thought. I was about to conclude it wasn't Pat when my co-worker, a Republican, asked me if I'd seen him.

(thanks to AmericaBlog for finding this!)