Shipwrecked

- the GOP, that is.

How coincidental it was, that, right after Paul O'Neill - former Secretary of the Treasury - had his candid assessment of Bush published in The Price of Loyalty, he got accussed of leaking classified information. Which had the desired effect of silencing him.

John Danforth's (former US Senator for 18 years, who later resigned after serving as Ambassador to UN briefly) comments on the breakdown of the secular state under Republican rule are something - for the radical right more than anybody else, really - to chew on:

Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. .. a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement. .. Our current fixation on a religious agenda has turned us in the wrong direction. It is time for Republicans to rediscover our roots.

Check out Sidney Blumenthal's piece in Salon. (Yes, you have to click an ad first, but trust me it's worth it.) In any case, how do you pass up on an article that opens like this --

There is no one left to rescue the Republican Party from George W. Bush. He is home alone. The Republican-establishment wise men whose words were once quiet commands are shouting unheeded warnings. The Republican leaders of Congress are distracted and obsessed with their own crises of corruption.

Now, for any chance of salvation, the big guns are going to have to do some serious rethinking - be it a major overhaul of policy, or people. (Both desperately needed, actually.) As it did for Reagan.

And while they're at it, put Cheney on the to-boot list.


Technorati: US politics, Bush, Republican