Monday, May 21, 2007
Josh Marshall for Pulitzer
I'm just getting my noms in early -- Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo should receive a Pulitzer prize for his work on the US Attorney's Scandal -- and thus become the first full-time blogger to win the Pulitzer prize.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
An Existential Question for the GOP
As always with the GOP, it comes down to domestic political power, to all appearances their only reason for being. Washington Post today, Page A1:
House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months.
Note the many possible concerns of a thinking, feeling human being that were not expressed: Their worries for the Iraqi people. Their concerns about whether the Iraq war is worth its ongoing cost in American lives (including their constituents'); in Iraqi civilian lives; in dollars. Their concerns about the continuing explosion in the deficit ($200B per year) that the war has created, and the global rise in Islamic radicalism that it is fueling. Any question of whether having our troops in Iraq right now does more harm than good.
No. Their only expressed concern is this: If the situation in Iraq does not improve, the Republicans will be thumped again in November 2008. In all likelihood, a majority of those present in the room with the President will be voted out of office.
Which raises my existential question for the GOP: What is the purpose of domestic political power if it does not allow you to raise these questions of ultimate ends – the lives of innocents; the good of the nation; the best and wisest uses of American power – in person, with the President of the United States, on one of the so-rare occasions when you have the opportunity?
House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months.
Note the many possible concerns of a thinking, feeling human being that were not expressed: Their worries for the Iraqi people. Their concerns about whether the Iraq war is worth its ongoing cost in American lives (including their constituents'); in Iraqi civilian lives; in dollars. Their concerns about the continuing explosion in the deficit ($200B per year) that the war has created, and the global rise in Islamic radicalism that it is fueling. Any question of whether having our troops in Iraq right now does more harm than good.
No. Their only expressed concern is this: If the situation in Iraq does not improve, the Republicans will be thumped again in November 2008. In all likelihood, a majority of those present in the room with the President will be voted out of office.
Which raises my existential question for the GOP: What is the purpose of domestic political power if it does not allow you to raise these questions of ultimate ends – the lives of innocents; the good of the nation; the best and wisest uses of American power – in person, with the President of the United States, on one of the so-rare occasions when you have the opportunity?
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