Civil War

It's on! It's been a long time coming, but the GOP's war for the soul of the party appears to have spilled out into the open with the decision of California Congressman Kevin McCarthy opting to bow out of the race for the Speaker of the House position that John Boehner recently resigned.

Though McCarthy was expected to win the vote, the decision of the extreme Talibanist wing of the GOP's House delegation to not support McCarthy apparently played a role in the decision. Even prior to the announcement, I wondered whether McCarthy could effectively lead given the unrest of the Talibanists. As the decision shows, he apparently realized not. Though he clearly had ambitions for the job, I give McCarthy credit for being smart enough to not take a job that he would have entered from a position of weakness. The irony of all this is that McCarthy has played a major role in increasing the rightward tilt of the GOP in Congress.

However, what we have is a case of the tail wagging the dog--is the GOP going to allow its extreme nutcase right wing (numbering about 40) take the party hostage?

From the L.A. Times: 

Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, who was backing McCarthy, said he warned Republicans that “those who wanted to take down John Boehner will frag the next guy and that's what we saw just happened .... I'm not going to support anyone running for speaker who is going to appease the rejectionist wing of this party.”

Of course, the chickens are simply coming home to roost. Having cynically exploited the crazed right wing of its party for political gain, the GOP is now having to fulfill promises it never intended on keeping.

The Illusion of Ronald Reagan

Illustration by Barry Blitt from Vanity Fair article

Michael Kinsley in Vanity Fair recently addressed an issue I have often wondered about myself — why does the GOP deify Ronald Reagan's presidency so much when the record shows he actually did little to advance or improve issues of importance to the right during his presidency.

See the article here. As noted in the piece, the Federal government actually expanded during his presidency:

Under President Reagan (1981–89), the size of the federal government increased by any measure. Executive-branch civilian employment, which covers almost everything except the uniformed military and the Postal Service, was 2.109 million in 1981 and 2.129 million in 1989. Total federal-government employment rose during this period from 4.9 million to 5.3 million.

...Reagan inherited a federal budget of $599 billion in revenue, $678 billion in spending, and a deficit of $79 billion. He left office with a federal budget of $909 billion in revenue, a little less than $1.1 trillion in spending, and a deficit of $155 billion.

...If you’re looking for a good bureaucracy slasher, try Bill Clinton. In his eight years, the size of the executive-branch workforce dropped more than 10 percent, from 2.9 million to 2.6 million.

For myself personally, I always noticed that this hero of the Christian right didn't seem to put much emphasis on the issue of abortion. Indeed, as Governor of California, he expanded abortion procedures, and while he courted pro-lifers by paying lip service in support of a Constitutional amendment that would have restricted abortions, he certainly didn't put much energy behind it (see here for source).

I recognize that Reagan's sunny optimism and positive outlook restored the confidence of many Americans and made him a hero to those who believed in American exceptionalism. But talk about a Telfon president! To many on the right, Reagan remains one of the last truly "pure" heroes, which makes it all rather pathetic when one sees much of it is nothing more than self-delusion and wishful thinking.