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Spinning a Grand Old Fantasy

Jim McTague, a dyed in the wool Republican, is surprisingly negative on the McCain/Palin team. Recall that McTague forecast the GOP would retain both houses in 2006, based on a calculation relying on campaign fund raising. McTague sounds more like a Democrat than a Republican.

Note the discussion on bailouts at the end:

THE 2008 REPUBLICAN PLATFORM RELEASED at the party convention in St. Paul last week is a grandiloquent document, replete with Reaganesque calls for lower taxes, smaller government, and greater self-reliance. An honest librarian would file it in the fiction section.

I'm not a naïf. I appreciate that searching for candor among politicians is about as productive as shopping for a Rolex at the corner drugstore. All politicians make promises that they never intend to keep. You generally can wrest a straighter answer from 16-year-old teenager intent on deceiving you than you can from a campaigning politician.

Even so, this GOP document is so divorced from reality that it approaches parody. The authors should have penned the document in cuneiform, because it describes an ancient GOP, not the party of today.

One of the platform's most monumental political principles is daily being trampled upon by the Bush administration, with the acquiescence of most GOP members of Congress. This is contained in a section devoted to the housing crisis that declares, "We do not support government bailouts of private institutions. Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct itself. We believe in the free market as the best tool to sustained prosperity and opportunity for all..."

Democrats are depicted as the party of big, intrusive government, willing to "ignore fiscal problems while squandering billions on ineffective programs." The GOP, however, has no moral legs to stand on when it hurls such insults.

The Bush administration has bailed out Wall Street, and stands ready to bail out mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- in the process abetting a slide into more intrusive government. If we are headed down the road to socialism, then the GOP can be credited with setting the pavers.  (Emphasis added)

Sources:
The GOP has lost its way.   
Spinning a Grand Old Fantasy
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2008 D.C. CURRENT 
JIM MCTAGUE
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB122065383575605429.html

Video
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid86245679/bclid1137792066/bctid1776561804

Sunday, September 07, 2008 | 12:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (29) | TrackBack (0)
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Comments

"Socialism"? As the famous quote goes, "I don't think the word means what you think it means". The only trend I can see here is a plutocratic version of "socialism for the rich". (And the latter is a misnomer -- it's really "the well connected", though there is probably a good correlation.)

Posted by: cm | Sep 7, 2008 1:03:41 AM