Op-Ed: Republican candidates, base support 'un-American' policies RAW STORY

Published: Friday May 18, 2007 Print This Email This New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the leading Republican presidential candidates would run the country just as President Bush has, pursuing policies in conflict with the rule of law and the rigors of logic, including torturing terror suspects and conflating disparate threats facing Amercia. "The principles Bush has betrayed are principles today's GOP, dominated by movement conservatives, no longer honors," Krugman writes in today's column. "In fact, rank-and-file Republicans continue to approve strongly of Bush's policies -- and the more un-American the policy, the more they support it." Krugman cited the enthusiastic response from the crowd at Tuesday's Republican debate when Rudy Giuliani endorsed waterboarding suspected terrorists and Mitt Romney called for doubling Guantanamo as evidence of the mood within the GOP base. He also said Romeny, the former Massachusetts Governor, was repeating Bush's distortions in treating "mutually hostile groups as if they constituted a single enemy." Just as Bush worked to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida were acting in concert, Romney referred to a "global jihadist effot" in which "Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida" are joining forces against the US. "Aren't Sunnies and Shiites killing each other, not coming together?" Krugman asked in reference to what many consider a burgeoning civil war in Iraq. "Nevermind." Krugman said the nomination will go to someone who will continue the Bush legacy, "or to a very, very good liar." Excerpts from Krugman's column: # Finally, what about the Bush administration's trademark incompetence? In appointing unqualified loyalists to key positions, Bush was just following the advice of the Heritage Foundation, which urged him back in 2001 to "make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second." And the base doesn't mind: The Bernie Kerik affair -- Giuliani's attempt to get his corrupt, possibly mob-connected business partner appointed to head the department of homeland security -- hasn't kept Giuliani from becoming the apparent front-runner for the Republican nomination. What we need to realize is that the infamous "Bush bubble," the administration's no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there's a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job -- and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias. And the Republican nomination will go either to someone who shares these beliefs, and would therefore run the country the same way Bush has, or to a very, very good liar. # FULL COLUMN CAN BE SEEN HERE (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED)



