The Enemy Within

"The greatest strategic blunder in 40 years. If prudence is the mark of a conservative, [Bobo] has ceased to be a conservative."
- Pat Buchanan

It's starting to feel a little like 1992 again as an old Bush-family nemesis is rearing his head. Just in time for the Rethug debate over conservative values and issues, Pat Buchanan is burning down the house once again. Let me just state that I have never agreed with Old Pat's right to life agenda, but I find the man's discipline on conservatism compelling. Shrinking the deficit, aversion to nation-building, a smaller more effective government, a return to state's rights, repairing the disintegration of this nation's culture - dare we admit that these are prominent "american" themes, not just Rethug ones.

Yes, indeed. You can be a conservative and not support Bobo.

Just as we have learned that Big Government can't solve all of our problems, neither can Big Business. Bobo and his ilk have been betting on winners and losers since Ronnie Raygun and his supply-side, trigger-happy chowderheads took to the stage and grass roots in 1976. To state that tax-breaks to the job creation universe will solve the problems of the average Joe is a short hop from drinking the Kool-Aid on Soviet-brand economic policy. Taxation and trade policy are the keys to economic strength in a global marketplace - not government spending programs which we can no longer afford nor the undeniably short sighted policy of selecting corporate winners.

I hate to say I told you so, but the passion is there within the conservative wing of the Rethug factory, and do not confuse this with the Neo-Con bunker residing in the Pentagon and V.P. Repo's humble abode. Noting that he criticized the first President Bobo - Mr Rogers on Xanax - for the first gulf war, Mr. Buchanan quotes himself campaigning as the Reform Party candidate in 2000. "How can all our meddling not fail to spark some horrible retribution?" he said then. "Have we not suffered enough - from Pan Am 103 to the World Trade Center [bombing of 1993] to the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam - not to know that interventionism is the incubator of terrorism? Or will it take some cataclysmic atrocity on U.S. soil to awaken our global gamesmen to the going price of empire?"

Among his fiercest attacks at Bobo is the frequent statement that "perceptions of weakness, not the use of force, invite terrorist attacks." Old Pat senses that a policy of containment is most effective while direct intervention creates a breeding ground for terrorism.

In case you forgot, Big John was also against the first Iraqi adventure using much the same logic. Only now, the Rethug War Machine pushes the "flip-flop" and "nuance" buttons. Even with a tiny bit of hindsight, isn't it clear that the first Iraq cabal was a precursor to this one? Wasn't leaving U.S. troops on sacred Arab lands a statement on American colonialism, forcing our enemies into Jihad against our interest? If you think not, I'd say you're at least somewhat uninformed.

European history shows us that the arrogance of power, the alienation of allies, and the waging of wars in regions where no vital interests are at risk leads to an imperial overstretch that brought down so many empires of the past.

Here's a few more interesting tidbits from Old Pat's direction, and if I'm Big John I would stake out a position on many of these issues because they speak to the core of the Independent voter. Just take a few of them and hammer them home night after night on the pundit shows, and be disciplined! No more DNC shrills, get to the centrist idealogues who can truly argue these points with conviction.

How the GOP has become not the party of Reagan, but of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and LBJ. [Take a look at the deficit].

Influential pseudo-conservatives who argued at the end of the Cold War for nothing less than the surrender of American sovereignty -- and aggressive wars to "wage democracy" all over the world. [This is a big government effort just like Welfare, Social Security and U.S. Agriculture policy]

Wolfowitz, Perle, and other key neocons: how they captured the President. [And destroyed our security in the process]

The revolutionary "neo-Jacobin" streak in neoconservatism that cannot be reconciled with any concept of true conservatism. [This is a divide and conquer principle of the mean-spirited right, and don't believe for a second that it cannot be used by Big John and his people - kick the floor boards and the cockroaches of dissent are there to be taken]

The ambiguous American position on Taiwan: how it has created the real possibility of war between the U.S. and China -- and seven elements of a new, realistic American policy toward China. [Environmental, monetary and trade policies are the keys. On an interesting sidebar, do a Google on Neil Bush, who in all of his infinite wisdom received $2M from a Chinese semiconductor company as a consultant (or click Contract With Chinese Chipmaker for a view).]

Why America's political independence, as Alexander Hamilton insisted, cannot survive without economic independence -- which we are wantonly squandering. [Just like 1992, "It's the economy, stupid!"]

How Bobo has bloated the deficit with social programs that out-liberal the most committed liberals. [Again, big government initiatives for the Right - take a look under the hood of Rethug "pork-politics" and you'll be reminded of Caligula]

Judicial supremacy: how today's activist judiciary came into being - and how it must be stopped. [Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas - just to name three]

How the Bush threat of war upon nations that had not attacked us is utterly unprecedented in American history -- and puts us all at risk. And why the worldwide War on Terror as Bobo has framed it will continue not only through his presidency, but for the rest of our lives. [Think that Al-Queada was pissed before? Now it's splintered into new factions and groups that we cannot control. We have lost another generation to the cause of Islam and Jihad and your children will pay the freight both in terms of higher body counts and increased taxes to support the military industrial complex.]

How Bobo has unnecessarily thrown down the gauntlet to every rival and would-be world power, and issued a challenge to lesser powers to unite against us. [Any day now I can smell the European Union forming a new trade policy that eats away at us from the core]

The Islamic world: how Bobo has placed us on a course for endless wars with Muslims who are repelled by the social, cultural, and moral decadence they see in America and the West. [Force without hearts-and-minds are a tragic mistake - can you remember the fall of Saigon? Check back in six months and watch Baghdad turn into Beruit.]

How the Bobo Doctrine contradicts history and common sense, and will bleed, bankrupt and isolate this republic. [Both Spain and Portugal were once World powers, and witness their over-extension and what their place in the world is today]

What are the Rethugs doing about all this? Old Pat dares to state the truth: the traditional conservative party is abandoning its core principles in search of votes, signing off on imperialistic misadventures and economic treason, and helping to impose a social, moral, and cultural revolution upon our country.

While not always agreeing with Old Pat and his politics, the man is truly admirable. And he may have just helped Big John take down Bobo and his Texas mafia once and for all. Two one-term nitwits will forever banish the the Bush clan to the back pages of history. No more Jeb, no more Neil, and no more neo-con legacy.