Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Wheels Coming Off The Bush Bus?

Former GOP House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, never one to understate an opinion, says of the new, Condi-led Bush foreign policy: "We have accepted the lawyer-diplomatic fantasy that talking while North Korea builds bombs and missiles and talking while the Iranians build bombs and missiles is progress," as reported by WaPo Michael Abramowitz. "Is the next stage for Condi to go dancing with Kin Jong Il?" he asked?

Yes, things are in disarray in the Republican party. GOP conservatives have hurled the ultimate insult at their once adored warrior-president....Bush's foreign policy is "the triumph of Kerryism."

But wait, there's more.

Yesterday the GOP-controlled Senate voted 63 to 37 for federally funded stem cell research even though Bush "The Decider" has threatened to veto the bill....his FIRST ever veto in six years. Instead of using stem cells for potential medical advances and treatments.... diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, some cancers, spinal cord injuries and other maladies.... Bush has "decided" it is better to destroy them and cater to the edict of his party's far-right religious conservatives.

But there are some powerful players in the GOP who oppose Bush and support the stem cell legislation.... Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (TN), Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT), Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) and former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

The winds of GOP unrest have also blown into Georgia. Former religious conservative "Wonder Boy" Ralph Reed of Christian Coalition fame during the 1990s, failed in his bid for the party's nomination for a paltry lieutenant governor's post. The putrid whiff of ties to the disgraced Jack Abramoff didn't help. There was a time when Pat Robertson's anointed Reed would have been a shoo-in.... hmmmm.

And, the latest sign that Bush is desperately looking for friends.... after a six-year snub, Bush has agreed to address the annual national convention of the NAACP, choosing to overlook the "names they've called me," as Bush complained in 2004. Maybe he was referring to the comment by NAACP Chairman Julian Bond when he called the far-right members of the Republican party "the Taliban wing." Sounds right to me.

Hopefully, these are small but hopeful signs that the wheels may at last be coming off of the Bush administration's political bus to hell.

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