A Dem President will be a wonderful tonic for Congressional ‘Pugs. They’ll rediscover their patriotic fervor for the 1st, 4th and 6th Amendments…Of course, we have to make sure it’s a Dem Prez…

Here’s a wild speculation to make you wonder about that:

There were a lot of reasons given for 9/11 and attacking Iraq. There were rationalizations which suited each interest group and weren’t tied together. Here’s another one…what if the Bush mafia promised a dictatorship and one-party rule, Republican majority forever?

But, now that the Bush administration has everything it wanted and the back-stabbing has been underway it might be more and more obvious to people who have stuck tight with Bush that he isn’t actually going to pull off the R-rule forever or dictatorship forever, so they’re left hanging out there looking like Odie about to be kicked off a table-top.

What do Repubs do when they’ve supported a coup, but it’s not accompli?

Do they all claim they were blackmailed?

There isn’t even enough time for Bushies to stab ‘em all. There aren’t enough long knives.

If you strike a king you had better kill the king. What happens if you try to overthrow the U.S. government and your leader just walks away, leaving you high and dry?

Republicans had better think carefully about this. If they stick with Bush down the line, where does it lead?

“Neo, you’ve been down that road. You know where it leads.”

The sane way out of this is to return to normal two-party rule with Repubs taking a sound thumpin’ for several elections — the public will not be kind, but they will eventually see new faces they will want to elect with an R after their name.

Avert disaster, walk away from teh Bush.

… wishful thinking that there is some great “silent majority” of republicans that are secretly retching over the destruction THEIR party has caused the US the past 25 years.

I think it’s clear this year that Ron Paul is to the Left of the other Republicans. Isn’t he the only one calling for an end to the war in Iraq?

If he doesn’t win the nomination I’d expect a lot of his followers would have to do some soul searching and wonder if the Republican party has narrowed itself, so that Libertarian-ish guys are now drifting in the middle of no-man’s land. They might want to consider voting Democratic if only for one election.

Democrats should take such an endorsement as a challenge: to move away from big government Liberal projects as much as they can and to get the budget under control and to perhaps reform some other government programs to return Privacy to American citizens. There are many intrusive programs, so it shouldn’t be too hard for Dems to find (with help from Libertarians) programs which need to be cut or reformed.

This might be a once in a lifetime vote for many Libertarians, but if Republicans continue to support the war, then it might be their duty to oppose Republican warring any legal way they can.

The people who care about the United States and used to be republicans have already left the republican party. What is left is 30% of the population that is rabid republican extremists; they are pro-war – first last, and always, pro-torture, pro-indefinite detention, pro-criminally unitary president (i.e., totalitarianism), and pro-white male authoritarian domination of the nation.
…
Sure you need to appeal to the middle to elect democrats. But don’t be talking nonsense that somehow there are republicans in that middle and worse yet that there are republican politicians willing to listen to them and push a middle position or compromise. republican politicians are not listening to the middle – they are only listening to the extremist base.

And, the Libertarian element should reconsider associating with that extremism.

I know I’m late for the party here, but add my thanks to LHP, too.

I’d make one addition, however. The ‘good’ Republicans aren’t going to do this by themselves. I predict that they WILL NOT do it without a push from the Democrats. The famous Republican confab with Nixon did not happen, and would not have happened, without the immanent threat of impeachment. We need to find a way to get John Conyers to begin an impeachment investigation in the HJC. If that happens, I believe that a lot of things will start to shake loose.

Bob in HI

Amen brother!~ I could not agree more

I’d make one addition, however. The ‘good’ Republicans aren’t going to do this by themselves. I predict that they WILL NOT do it without a push from the Democrats. The famous Republican confab with Nixon did not happen, and would not have happened, without the immanent threat of impeachment. We need to find a way to get John Conyers to begin an impeachment investigation in the HJC. If that happens, I believe that a lot of things will start to shake loose.

Bob in HI

hackworth at 118, methinks thou dost protest too much…

Oklahoma kiddo @ 99

I want justice for Mother Earth. No. I absolutely demand it.

You are not alone.

Read Revelations 11-18. Partucularly the last few words…

I’m leaving now, this piece of chopped liver can take hint.

It is appropriate, I came here in the first place, tongue firmly in cheek, snarking at you Kiddo about Oklahoma’s upper class.

And people actually thought at the time I was troll.

Hopefully, now they know better.

But I can take a hint.

I’ll see if I can get this list of potentially contrite Republicans put together on another blog somewhere. It is a good idea, regardless of where it came from.

Thanks to everyone who offered options, the list is long enough to start with, and I will contact each of them in whatever way might be available.

If any of you might want to consider the same approach, here’s what I’ve got so far.

Chuck Hagel
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
John Danforth
Colin Powell
Christie Todd Whitman
Lawrence Wilkerson
Kevin Phillips
Paul O’neil,Pat Buchanan
William F Buckley
Bruce Fein
John Dean
Flynt Leverett
Robert McNamara

LHP, I wasn’t trying to hijack the thread, I thought the list idea was quite germane to the issue.

Farewell, doggies, it’s been real.

Jep in case you check back, I don’t believe anyone thaought you were trying to hijack the thread. To the contrary, I thought you had a goood idea and some peopl ewere adding to the list.

I don’t think anyone was sending you any negative hints.

looseheadprop @ 101

Demonizing someoe you know nothing about, doesn’t help anybody or anything.

Especially when the two parties differences are mostly

there’s something i’d like to add to this… it’s that it is very hard (psyc-wise) to change one’s world view so dramatically… and it doesn’t happen in an instant. providing moral support (while being completely honest – no sugar coating) is much more likely to be helpful in the long run. demonizing people justifiably makes people feel defensive… and makes it all that much harder to break through their biases. trying to be open to the possibility of our own biases helps too.

selise @ 126

looseheadprop @ 101

Demonizing someoe you know nothing about, doesn’t help anybody or anything.

very, very true.

there’s something i’d like to add to this… it’s that it is very hard (psyc-wise) to change one’s world view so dramatically… and it doesn’t happen in an instant. providing moral support (while being completely honest – no sugar coating) is much more likely to be helpful in the long run. demonizing people justifiably makes people feel defensive… and makes it all that much harder to break through their biases. trying to be open to the possibility of our own biases helps too.

I have seen someone who calls himself a conservative Republican rant at “liberals” because we don’t have national health care. Ignorant? Yes. But for many, the parties have no particular political positions. They are just identity movements where they feel comfortable. So when “their” party opposes what they support, it’s not important to them. They still must defeat the enemy. This is true of Democrats as much as Republicans.

I see in this the same problem that I see in all calls to bipartisanship. In the nearly 7 years of the Bush Administration, the Republicans have shown no real sign of it. For them, it is usually code for allowing Democrats to vote with them on what Republicans want.

We just saw one exercise of the bipartisan spirit in the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. This was supposed to mark the moment when Republicans would peel off and start supporting “bipartisan” moves to leave Iraq. We all know where that went.

If Republicans are so interested in standing up to abuses like NSLs, I say fine. But as they and their President were instrumental in creating them, they should show their good faith in opposing them by saying so publicly and reaching out to Democrats. Otherwise what we are likely to see is a reprise of the Iraq debate. Republicans will express doubts but when it is time to vote they will back Bush and sell out the Democrats, again.

Yes, and half the “Democrats” will sell out the Democrats too. Except the truth of the matter is that they would not be selling out the Democrats. They would be selling out the majority of the people but the Democrats do not stand for the majority of the people. They stand for the semi-sane wing of the corporate criminal faction as opposed to the Republicans who are the insane wing of the corporate criminal faction.

Thinking that a Democratic president will solve the problem is naive. Thinking that a larger Democratic majority in Congress will solve the problem is naive. It must be the right kind of Democrat. And if the party is run by the wrong kind of Democrat, nothing will improve. The party leadership is not spineless or clueless, they are very clever in continuing to promote their real interests while fooling “liberals” or “progressives”.

I want my belief, in the “idea”, of America back. The belief in democracy, freedom and our leaders getting past their petty differences to do what’s best for our country and the world. I think the corporate media is largely responsible for taking it way. The only way to get it back is through them.

I disagree. By this time, anyone — ANYONE — who calls himself a Republican in 2007 is either greedy (hideously so)…

There is no doubt. F them all.

~~~ModNote: Edited for content.~~~