When the Day is Done

* homage of the Peter,Paul and Mary classic

Drudge proclaims the new Rasmussen poll which shows Obama only beating Ron Paul by 1%. What he doesn't mention is the results of yesterday's CNN poll which shows Obama beating all Republican contenders by 8-12 % points. In almost all one-to-one contests, Obama exceeds his 2008 percentage. That's with his approval rating drooping.

It's still shocking to me to realize that for the first time in my life the President of the United States is younger than I am. This sudden awareness prompted me to look at the age of some of the Republican aspirants in 2012. Mitt Romney would be 66/67. Newt would be a old 70. Ron Paul himself would be 75 and Haley Barbour would be 66. Only Mike Huckabee would be a relatively youthful 57. Put a fork in them, they're done. Frankly, I don't think we have seen the nominee emerge yet.

The election to replace Congressman Wexler in Florida was the first contest post-health care reform. While the district was Democratic by registration, it had a high percentage of elderly voters whom the Republicans are banking on this year. The Republican ran against President Obama and the healthreform bill. He got crushed. At the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, all speakers urged candidates to run against Obama. The recommendation is absolutely nuts since he's the most popular politician in the American system right now.

Norm Ornstein may get shot. The long-time student of our political system at AEI wrote an op-ed today for the Washington Post, which examines the conservative rhetoric against the President and places his initiatives against past conservative ideas and Presidents. Ridiculing New Ginrgich statement that "Obama was the most radical President in American history", Norm concluded that Obama was centrist, pragmatic and working from the moderate center-left but by no means was he a leftist.

George Schultz compounds the problem for Republicans by writing a full-throated endorsement of the new nuclear treaty from the point of view of President Reagan's former Secretary of State. This op-ed goes beyond his verbal comments and applauds Obama's new nuclear policy review.

Republican Senators are already lining up with their hands out for their votes to ratify. McCain wants more funds for the modernization of nukes, while others are demanding commitments about the nuclear defense system aka Star Wars.

Ron Kyl was the first Republican out of the box to dismiss the Nuke Security Summit as no big deal because it went over the same issues we knew existed but didn't deal with Iran. The Washington Times is reporting that conservatives believe that President Obama's talk about a nuclear terrorist threat is hype. That's sort of a relief to hear conservatives downgrade the threat of terrorists. I thought I was supposed to be afraid all the time.

New Gingrich sent one of his fund-raising letters this morning which warned about increased taxes and reminded us of the Open Carry Rallies to protect the Second Amendment. A little problem--a report yesterday showed that 99% of American taxpayers got relief this year. Another poll showed that taxes ranked about seventh in the list of concerns by Americans, slightly above terrorism.

After his book Worse than Watergate, John Dean wrote his least known book Conservatives without a Conscience (Penguin 2007) where he tried to discover for his own satisfaction the reasons the conservative movement went awry. The project began during the Clinton years when John Dean talked with Barry Goldwater about the situation. A frail Barry Goldwater was appalled at the tone of our politics and feared that decent people would be driven away from public service. He complained about Republicans turning off voters and engaging in dirty politics.

John Dean asked Barry why he thought this was. "It's these so-called social or cultural conservatives. And I don't know what in hell possesses them. I'd like to find out", the former Senator said.

Later as the project progressed, Dean found out how Charles Colson was actively working to promote the book Silent Coup, which blamed John Dean for the Watergate cover-up. Colson who was then a born-again Christian and an activist on the Religious Right puzzled Dean. He called Barry up for his take. "Goddamn it, John, The Republicans are selling their soul to win elections. Goldwater warned," Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so. It's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. The government won't work without it. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.

John Dean discovered Bob Altemeyer's work on authoritarianism and uses it to cast light on the emergence of authoritarian conservatism as it exists in today's Republican Party. Since Newt wants to run for President, it is well-worth reading Dean's account of Newt and his rise to political power in the House.

While I love to read these books anyway, they are a help in trying to explain the bizarre behavior of Republicans today. Barack Obama wins the election with the highest number of popular votes in American history--something never mentioned again. A short time before he takes his oath of office, Mitch McConnell calls a Republican Senate Caucus meeting to instill party discipline that there would be no cooperation with the new Administration on anything. This was first reported by Arlen Specter as the reason he left the party and later confirmed by the reporting of the New York Times. The country faces Great Depression II and two wars. What rational being would adopt such a political strategy in a national crisis? And the strategy has continued into the second year of Obama's term. The Republican Party has gleefully become the Party of Hell No. From John Boehner's tirade on the House Floor against the healthcare bill it's clear they don't believe in representative democracy anymore.

John Dean does us a service by locating where this mentality came from and pointing out that this resembles no conservatism recognized by old Republicans. He asserts what many conservatives have told me that conservatism in an attitude and an approach but not an ideology. Dean shows you how it became an ideology and why it is destructive to the political system.

Fox News is now criticizing the tea baggers. I believe Roger Ailes looked at the internal polling numbers and saw they were hurting the Republicans and decided to pull back a bit. The escalation of violent rhetoric is leading to somewhere nasty and the instigators are now dialing back to avoid blame for the catastrophe.

In the worst case scenario, read Frederic Spotts' The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (Yale, 2008). Wonderfully written.