The End of the Republican Revolution

Interesting link forwarded from Jafo on Usenet, on the end of the Republican revolution. I was a fan of the Republican revolution-- at least I was back when it really did look like some good ideas coming into Washington, and not the same old shit.

"...after controlling both houses of Congress and the White House for most of Bush's six years in office, the party has a governing record that has come unmoored from those Grand Old Party ideals. The exquisite political machinery that aces the elections has begun to betray the platform. To win votes back home, lawmakers have been spending taxpayer money like sailors on leave, producing the biggest budget deficits in U.S. history. And the party's approach to national security has taken the country into a war that most Americans now believe was a mistake and that the government's own intelligence experts say has shaped "a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives."

"One of the problems is that after the Republicans got into power, the system began to change them, not just the other way around. Among the first promises the G.O.P. majority broke was the setting of term limits...."

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Frank Luntz, one of the strategists of the G.O.P. takeover, wrote:
"The Republican Party of 2006 is a tired, cranky shell of the aggressive, reformist movement that was swept into office in 1994 on a wave of positive change. I worked for them. They were friends of mine. These Republicans are not those Republicans."

No, these are "big government" Republicans. I want the old Republicans back!