Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Kuintessential Republicans Part 1
The K Street Gang And Before
Matthew Continetti, a young staff writer for The Weekly Standard, has written a new book titled, The K Street Gang. It is a self-serving Republican version of the history of the K Street Project, the wildly successful, up till now, GOP and radical right, strategy to subvert our democracy and to dictate our direction as a nation. Its main theme is to provide a measure of damage control for the exploding Republican and extremist culture of corruption over the past 35 years.
Continetti does this in a number of ways. Since there is no longer any way to cover up all the crimes and illegalities, he tries to limit responsibility to a handful of GOP operatives, most notably, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist. While he is quite correct in labeling them opponents of democracy and honest government, he tries to whitewash the depths of the deceit and treachery. He says they are basically good guys who got caught up in their lust for power and money. This is undoubtedly true, at least the part about their lust and greed. But he tries to lead us down the primrose path when he says those traits and behavior came after the Republican Revolution of 1994. By limiting the timeline he is trying to confuse and obfuscate the pattern of lawlessness and abuse of power since the Nixon Presidency.
The seeds for the radicalization of the right came with the 1964 landslide loss of Barry Goldwater to Lyndon Johnson. No one likes to get the daylights kicked out of them, and the GOP rightwing certainly was no exception. This trouncing coupled with their natural tendencies of aggressiveness, combativeness, and their inability or unwillingness to forgive lit the fire and gave birth to today’s radical right.
K Street Part 2
K Street Part 3
K Street Part 4
K Street Part 5
K Street Part Last
The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.
The K Street Gang And Before
Matthew Continetti, a young staff writer for The Weekly Standard, has written a new book titled, The K Street Gang. It is a self-serving Republican version of the history of the K Street Project, the wildly successful, up till now, GOP and radical right, strategy to subvert our democracy and to dictate our direction as a nation. Its main theme is to provide a measure of damage control for the exploding Republican and extremist culture of corruption over the past 35 years.
Continetti does this in a number of ways. Since there is no longer any way to cover up all the crimes and illegalities, he tries to limit responsibility to a handful of GOP operatives, most notably, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist. While he is quite correct in labeling them opponents of democracy and honest government, he tries to whitewash the depths of the deceit and treachery. He says they are basically good guys who got caught up in their lust for power and money. This is undoubtedly true, at least the part about their lust and greed. But he tries to lead us down the primrose path when he says those traits and behavior came after the Republican Revolution of 1994. By limiting the timeline he is trying to confuse and obfuscate the pattern of lawlessness and abuse of power since the Nixon Presidency.
The seeds for the radicalization of the right came with the 1964 landslide loss of Barry Goldwater to Lyndon Johnson. No one likes to get the daylights kicked out of them, and the GOP rightwing certainly was no exception. This trouncing coupled with their natural tendencies of aggressiveness, combativeness, and their inability or unwillingness to forgive lit the fire and gave birth to today’s radical right.
K Street Part 2
K Street Part 3
K Street Part 4
K Street Part 5
K Street Part Last
The Bush Credo - No Sacrifice Is Too Great For Others To
Make.
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