The Rest of the Story

From the Great and Powerful Kos, the real reason for the Republican jihad against SCHIP (culminating in their embarrassing attacks against a 12 year old boy and his family): they fear, as with Hillarycare in '93, that success will remind middle-class voters that they have far more in common with the working poor than they do with the economic aristocracy the GOP supports. One of the linchpins of Republican electoral strategy since Reagan has been to make "entitlement" a dirty word and associate any form of government assistance with welfare queens and other undesirables. If even some of the large numbers of uninsured middle class families start seeing things otherwise, then the whole "government is the problem" argument falls apart.

UPDATE: Mitch McConnell beats up children. And he blatantly lied about it. Yes, I know; not much of a surprise, but it tends to fit in well with the above theory.

Freddie = Ronnie

Is Fred Thompson the long-prophesied Second Coming of Reagan? Let's examining the shocking similarities (and ignore for the moment the shocking ineptitude of the Thompson Campaign):

1. Actor of minimal talent? Check!
2. Fake populist rhetoric? Check!
3. Intellectual laziness? Check!
4. "Tough guy" image completely unanchored in reality? Check!
5. Severe allergic reaction to the truth? Check!
6. Vapid, jingoistic sloganeering masquerading as patriotism? Check!
7. Background as a snitch (Reagan for the FBI, Thompson on the Watergate Cmte)? Check!

There are, of course, differences. As a lawyer, Thompson at least recognizes the laws he supports ignoring. Moreover, with his background as a lobbyist, Thompson presumably has a passing familiarity with the government, both how it works on paper and how it works in reality (i.e., money talks). Also, there are no reports as yet indicating that Thompson takes advice from celebrity pyschics via his trophy wife.

UPDATE: E.J. Dionne, Jr. on Freddie: back to the future.

UPDATE 2: Another view on the same topic from The Right's Field.

Red Oyster Cult

An interesting piece from Crooks and Liars about how "conservatism" seems to be morphing into a bizarre cult of personality around George W. Bush, and as a result a growing rift is forming on the Right. As far back as the 1980's, I noticed that "conservative" seemed to mean "whatever Reagan was for," and the trend has only gotten worse with the ascendence of the Right-Wing Howler Monkey brigades to endlessly screech the party line on the internet, radio and television. I honestly think if Bush went on television tomorrow to announce that he was nationalizing the means of production and forming a dictatorship of the proletariat, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Coulter and the rest would rush to their microphones to describe his actions as "conservative" and "patriotic." Except, of course, for the Last True Republican, Bull Moose.