The Place of Dead Roads

Awhile ago, I began to understand how the present band of folks came to power. It isn't that they represent a majority opinion. The current power structure is a cabal; disparate interests making common cause in the pursuit of power. And George Bush has been the focal point. I don't think he really has any power. Sure, the presidency does confer great power, but this guy doesn't seem to have the brainpower to use it. What is it he says about governing from his "gut"?

There is only so long such a group can hold together. Keep in mind, this is not a collection of selfless souls out to help the country. I wouldn't want to be a member of any cabal that would have me as a member (sorry Groucho). When a bunch of power-hungry ghosts gather around the pure ineptitude that is Bush, there is only so long before things fall apart. When the means to power starts becoming an impediment to their goals, the whole artifice starts to crumble.

From Howard Fineman at MSNBC, The conservative crack up:

[T]he “neocons”['s]...neo-Wilsonian theory is correct, they insist, but the execution was botched by a Bush team that has turned out to be incompetent, crony-filled, corrupt, unimaginative and weak over a wide range of issues...

By the time Bush was in his second term as governor, laying the groundwork for his presidential run, he and Rove had gathered all of the often competing and sometimes contradictory strains of conservatism into one light beam...

But now all the constituent parts are — for various reasons — going their own way. Here's a checklist:

Religious conservatives: The Harriet Miers nomination was the final insult...And what really frosts the religious types is that Bush evidently feels that he can only satisfy them by stealth...

Corporate CEOs: Bush’s handling of Katrina was, and remains, a mortal embarrassment to their class...who believe...in anticipating problems and moving mass organizations. They also like to think of themselves as having a social conscience...

Main Street: Smaller government deficit hawks: people who think federal spending should be relentlessly reduced...After binges of spending and legislating, backbenchers in the GOP, especially in the House, are in open revolt...

Isolationists: Now the isolationists of old are back, and with a new crusade: immigration...But in the eyes of this crowd — one leader is Pat Buchanan — the Bush Administration is doing nothing.

Neocons: They think that the Middle East can be remade, and this country made safe, by instilling a semblance of democracy...But they seem to have given up on the ability of the Bush Administration to see that vision through...

Supply-siders: This is the one faction that the president has yet to disappoint in a major way...Bush and Rove remember what happened when Daddy moved his lips and raised taxes. will he move his lips, too? If the conservative crack up is to be complete — and I think it will be — the answer is yes.