Brent Budowsky concludes:
War was treated by George W. Bush not as a mean to unite the nation, to win the war, but as a means to divide the nation, to win his quest for unlimited power.George Bush was never the president of the whole American people. He was never the president of Democrats or independents. He was never even the president of Republicans in the Senate, whose advice he repeatedly ignored, whose counsel he treated with total contempt.
The great sin of the Senate Republicans, the legacy of carnage and national division that they bear primary responsibility for, is that they enabled and empowered this reckless abuse of power and this fanatical and obsessive hunger for unwise war.
When the Republicans had power and control of the Senate, they gloated in their supreme status and preened with their committee chairmanships while they tolerated their endless humiliation, by the president of their party, when his action expressed his contempt for their judgment.
They cheered when Bush attacked Democrats with the lie that they did not support the troops — and all while those very same Democrats were advocating publicly what Republicans were urging the President to do, privately.
I think Budowsky ascribes too much credit to Senate Republicans. I don't buy his idea that they kowtowed to Bush in public while privately disavowing his actions.
I think they too were in pursuit of permanent power just as Karl Rove was, and the good of the country was a distant second in that race.
In fact, I felt compelled to look up his bio at that site, because it sure felt like he was damn near apologizing for Senate Republicans' behavior. I think they knew full well what they were doing, and only when it started to turn badly in Iraq did they conveniently recover their senses.
Link via Avedon.
Posted by Linkmeister at July 10, 2007 02:07 PM | TrackBack