Republican Party Blindness

2012 Elections, Headlines Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

WRITTEN BY JACK KERWICK, PH.D., TheNewAmerican.com

Beginning in 2000, with the election to the presidency of George W. Bush, the Republican Party enjoyed control over both the legislative and executive branches of government. Election Day, 2006, however, marked the beginning of the end of this era, and by November of 2008, voters had long since resolved to bring the Republicans’ reign to a decisive close.

While watching the Iowa Republican presidential primary debate, one could be forgiven for thinking that none of this had happened. With the sole exception of Ron Paul, there wasn’t a single other candidate on the stage who so much as signaled regret over, much less repudiate (as Paul did), the very Republican Party agenda with which Americans became thoroughly disenchanted three years ago — an agenda to which, judging from the candidates’ utterances, Republicans remain committed today.

To put it in terms of our contemporary political vernacular, President Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism” is apparently alive and well in the Republican Party of 2011. The foreign policy component of this agenda especially continues to elicit virtually unanimous, and not infrequently, impassioned, support from the establishment — whether it’s in Washington or “conservative” media guises.

An exchange between former Senator Rick Santorum and Congressman Paul at the the debate in Ames, Iowa, was particularly instructive in this regard.

Santorum expressed unmitigated pride in having endorsed the Iraq War — a seemingly intractable conflict undertaken for reasons that are as dubious as its objectives have been elusive. It was this issue more so than any other that explains the angst that the nation developed toward the GOP. Yet considering that neither the other candidates — except, of course, for Ron Paul — nor anyone else who originally supported this scandalous waste of life and treasure sought to correct Santorum, it is more reasonable than not to suppose that his pride over this eight-year war is also theirs.

In addition to this, Santorum gave expression to precisely the sort of hysteria over the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran that informed our entry into Iraq. That is, he not-so-subtly indicated a readiness to involve America in another military adventure in the Middle East. Inferring from the silence of his competitors — again, excepting Ron Paul — and the “conservative” media’s verdict that Santorum “schooled” Paul on the need for America to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, the GOP has emphatically not amended its ways, its protestations to the contrary aside.

To read more, visit:  http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/jack-kerwick/8625-republican-party-blindness

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