Ready, Fire, Aim!

THE EDITORS at Esquire really, really don't like the Republican party. But, man, they are particularly ornery today. To wit:

"'Compassionate conservatism' was a hell of a brand name. You have to give Karl Rove credit for that. It was a masterpiece of political marketing. Rhetorically, at least, it managed to bridge the great gap between what the Republican party was doing and the people to whom it was doing most of it. ... Of course, it was all a shuck. (According to his memoir, David Kuo was a Republican who actually bought it, until he got to the White House and, one day, was told by Rove to come up with "a fucking faith-based thing," which is not how Saint Francis would have put it.) ... We are in an age dominated on one side by the New Politics of Sadism. Hurtful policies are enacted, not because of any logical benefit they might bring, but specifically because they hurt people the Republicans want to hurt. The thoroughgoing abandonment of the notion of a political commonwealth, cheered on by degrees since the elevation of Ronald Reagan and whatever ideas people could cram into his empty head, has reached the point among American conservatives where it is now the kind of faith you find in the most unshakable of perversions. It manifests itself everywhere. ... On the radio, and on cable news, it's expressed crudely by people who are far more honest about their contempt for their fellow citizens."

Well, this critique is a bit harsh. I'm not convinced that the bulk of Republicans, who are mostly middle of the road types like most Americans, buy the notion of "political sadism." (Their Tea Party overseers are another matter.) I've said it before: A train wreck is coming for the GOP. But change and a return to traditional Republican sanity probably won't be possible until the party runs off the rails completely. Ironically, this could be a rare instance when "burning down the house to save it" might be best, given the scope of the GOP's internal problems (see budget battle lunacy, rising star Michelle Bachmann, rightwing media, etc). We're watching it all unfold now in slow motion, and it ain't pretty.