maybe even the mainstream media will figure this out too.

Heehehhahahahaaa!! Good one!

IS THE GOP DOOMED?

We can certainly hope so. Either they're doomed, or the whole damn country is.

Actually, I think Will is onto something. I don't think even Nixon inspired the amount of loathing that the Man-Child does. What's more, while we probably won't see a repeat of the Grapes of Wrath, it's hard to imagine very much good economic news coming over the next 18 months, and that hits people directly. The "Great Revulsion" that Krugman talked about a while ago is well underway.

This may be the Idiot Prince's sole redeeming legacy -- that he single-handedly discredited a particularly poisonous political movement.

Yeah, the GOP was so wounded by Hoover that they got stuck with a two term Eisenhower Presidency, and control of the Senate for much of the 1950's. Granted, they didn't wield the kind of control they had in the ealry 00's, but to say they were handicapped by Hoover for 40 years is silly.

The Bush albatross need not hang around the neck of Republicans for 30 or 40 years to achieve its proper effect of inducing the extinction of that foam-flicked elephant.

I'd guess that within 15-20 years, the demographic changes already favoring Democrats will kick in decisively, and relegate them to the Southern Party they chose to embrace.

Will does know that McGovern was nominated in '72, right?

Will is the quintessential faux-fair Republican hack, kind of like Bill Safire about 15 years ago. He's just trying to set the bar lower for the Republicans. I don't understand why someone with Will's track record would be taken seriously by anyone except his fellow opinion making elites, who, at least, are well paid for taking him seriously.

kd: Will's comparison of Iraq to the Depression is probably overstated

how so?

i mean...how many times has there been a republican majority?

the handful of times it occurred...america paid for it...

dearly..

Yeah, the GOP was so wounded by Hoover that they got stuck with a two term Eisenhower Presidency, and control of the Senate for much of the 1950's. Granted, they didn't wield the kind of control they had in the ealry 00's, but to say they were handicapped by Hoover for 40 years is silly. Posted by: Doug-E-Fresh

Agreed.

Why anyone pays Will the least attention is beyond me. Twenty years ago, he used to be what one call ed a "young fogy" (and Tucker Carlson so wants to be his successor). Now, Will's having false recovered memories about a time he either didn't live in or couldn't possibly remember. Hell, he's about five years younger than my father who was born in the middle of Great Depression.

Going back to Hoover to hang today's GOP woes on is beyond bizarre considering that we've had 9 Republican administration since then.

1. The comparison is overstated - dramatically. Hell, the Depression scarred people for decades.
2. Our attention span isn't that long. Americans won't even remember Iraq in a couple of years. We're too busy watching Dancing with the Stars. Read Fahrenheit 451 again.

Actually, Kevin, its overstated by a helluva lot. The Depression led to a massive realignment resulting in FDR winning 4 presidential elections in a row and getting a gigantic Democratic majority in Congress. Iraq hasn't led to that -- yet.

Yeah, the GOP was so wounded by Hoover that they got stuck with a two term Eisenhower Presidency, and control of the Senate for much of the 1950's. Granted, they didn't wield the kind of control they had in the ealry 00's, but to say they were handicapped by Hoover for 40 years is silly.

Then I guess your assignment is to prove how Ike built on the enduring legacy of, say, Andrew Mellon. This should be quite amusing.

IS THE GOP DOOMED?

No. My guess is 80% of those who voted for Bush will vote for the next Republican presidential candidate. (Apologies to Vilfredo Pareto.)

Doug-E-Fresh: the odd thing about the Republican party in the 1950s was how astonishingly unconservative it was. Conservatives were pushed to the margins or beyond; the dominant Republicans of the Eisenhower era were all moderates who fundamentally accepted the premise of the New Deal.

It wasn't until Goldwater, and later Reagan, that Conservatism really had a triumphant return within the Republican party.

aphrael is exactly right about Eisenhower.

Don't forget that, to the right wingers of that day, Eisenhower was a Communist dupe.

I'm tellin' ya, Republicans are eventually going to reject this war. And when they do, who else will the turn to but the one man who has rejected this war from the very beginning?

Ron Paul.

Going back to Hoover to hang today's GOP woes on is beyond bizarre considering that we've had 9 Republican administration since then.

I have no idea what this means. No one is saying the current GOP troubles are Hoover's fault. What they are saying is the long-term damage currently being sustained by the party is comparable to the devastation caused to the Republicans by the Great Depression, which led to five successive presidential losses and the rise of a political juggernaut (The New Deal) that even today's conservatives bloody themselves charging against (remember the Social Security privatization fiasco?)

And I think Will, Buckley and even the usually ridiculous David Brooks may be onto something. Bush is actively refusing to do what the electorate is screaming for him to do, namely end the war. Voters will take a long time to forgive the GOP and trust it not to pull the same crap. And FranklyO is correct - in a decade or so the demographic winds will be blowing very hard against the Republicans.

You write: the party is led by knee-jerk loons who don't have a clue how to run a real foreign policy

Un...could we edit that to read....."...who don't have a clue how to run ANYTHING!"

Want a fun evening?

Sit down with a LONG sheet of paper...you may need a full pad....and start jotting down the names of everything you can think of that this Administration f...ed up.

Well, actually the easier way to approach it is to try and think of one thing they didn't f...k up. You won't even need a pencil.

Surely you can think of something....nope? OK never mind.

The public may not trust a party that it feels is unwilling to wage war even when war needs to be waged,

And which mythical party would that be? It certainly can't be the Democratic Party, the party of WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Kosovo. There hasn't been one instance in this country's history when the Democratic Party was unwilling to wage war when it needed to be waged.

Once again, please stop buying into Republican framing by using phrases like the one above.

The next president (who will be a Democrat) will be so saddled with the economic blowback, the Regency trained sleeper plants in the Executive branch, and the Right Wing noise machine in the media that they will not be able to do a damn thing.

So we'll get a repeat of the mid Seventies, the GOP will lay low, the Democratic President will be tarred and feather for mistakes they never made and we'll have a Republican President afterwards.

The Congress will remain in Democratic hands, barely, though.

That's my prediction.

...even if they do dress nicely and speak in well-modulated tones.

I thought we were talking about Republicans.

I don't think even Nixon inspired the amount of loathing that the Man-Child does.

With Nixon it was hatred. With Bush it's contempt.

Hatred allows you to feel at least some modicum of respect for the object of hatred. While people may have intensely disliked Nixon, at the least they had some sense that he was intelligent, hard-working and competent, that he had some accomplishments to his credit. With Bush, however, his sheer childishness, indolence, entitlement and general fuck-up-ishness are so infuriating that they inspire only contempt, which is a far more toxic feeling than hatred.

(T)he public is eventually going to decide that the party is led by knee-jerk loons who don't have a clue how to run a real foreign policy — even if they do dress nicely and speak in well-modulated tones. Eventually, maybe even the mainstream media will figure this out too. Kevin Drumm

You might be right about the public, but I have no confidence the mainstream media will ever figure it out.

By 1932, the Republicans had dominated the White House (with rare exceptions) for about 50 years. But the philosophy of the Republican Party (pro-business, pro-wealthy) had proven inadequete for the crisis of the day, the Great Depression. Voters gave Democrats and Liberals their chance, in 1932, and, with a little applied Keynesian economics and a big victory in World War II, they dominated the White House (with rare exceptions) until 1968. The great crisis of that day, the Vietnam War, split the Democratic Party and exposed the inadequecies of the Liberal philosophy. The Republican Party took advantage of the situation and grabbed the White House. But both Nixon and Ford would today be considered moderates, old-line Republicans. The Reagan Revolution of 1980 was the real backlash to the Democratic Revolution of 1932. Conservatives set out to dismantle everything that FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, the whole Democratic Party and the Liberal Philosophy had built up over the previous 48 years. They were well on their way to accomplishing their goal. The Gilded Age is back. The wealthy want to flaunt their wealth again. Big business operates with a minimun of government oversight or regulation. The country's natural resources and middle class are getting raped. And then along came George. By himself, he may destroy everthing the Conservative Movement has tried to accomplish for the last two generations. In over-reaching for a permanent, quasi-fascist, theocratic Republican Majority, he has exposed all of the shortcomings of the Conservative Philosophy. The sheer incompetence of George W Bush, and the Iraq War, are going to brand the Republican Party the same way Hoover and the Great Depression did earlir. This is what I thing Will was talking about: that 2008 may be another fundamental sea-change election that ushers in Democratic dominance for a generation. He has given the Democratic Party an opportunity to institute a New Progressive Age.What has scared the hell out of me for six years is that a really slick snake-oil salesman, a Republican Bill Clinton if you will, could have pulled it off and we would have been stuck with Rove's Permanent Republican Majority for who knows how long.

The Republicans have money. The bastards will always be able to pay somebody really smart to figure out the perfect new flavor bullshit to feed America.

Disagree completely. If the GOP find a moderate conservative candidate who acts like a seasoned CEO instead of a fratboy jesus freak, who is willing to get a good policy team behind him, then they can win. Remember, Amer is tired of one party rule. So if the dems control congress, a GOP president is a possibility. George Will is suggesting that the hard right GOP is certainly retreating back into the woodwork. Amer has had enough of that shit. The question is, will the GOP be smart enough to put up a moderate, intelligent, CEO type candidate? Do they even have such people? Bush has succeeded in pushing the country back toward the center after a post 911 hard swing to the right. Thanks, George.

This is an example of why Will is so much better than most columnists/analysts. He is much more intellectually honest. I can't think of a liberal who is in the same league. In this instance, I think Will is, as Kevin states, overstating the possible effect. I think fake fake al is exactly right. What happens in the future will be governed much more by the identify of the republican candidate and future events than by Bush's actions and the Iraq war.

Even the Hoover comparison overlooks the fact that long term democrat dominance arguably was aided as much or more by WWII than the depression.

Too soon to tell. Given far more than Iraq (which will hardly be forgotten in our lifetimes, any more than Vietnam ever would be), the coming economic/energy/environmental catastrophic events . . . it could go either way. Democratic dominance or a fascist state. There would have been no Democratic dominance without FDR and Truman.

. . . Oh, and thanks, Kevin, for bringing up Bill Kristol, one of the most vile individuals in pubic life today.

Will should stick to baseball. The game moves slowly enough for him to understand it.

I do agree, though, that GwB has done the Democratic Party an enormous favor. Unless Hillary gets the nomination; if she does, Independents may swing enough backlash votes to give whichever sacrificial lamb the GOP nominates a chance.

As the country distances itself from Iraq, this monumental blunder and its effects will only strengthen the Democratic party's hold on the government.
IMHO, that's a good thing, even if it's too late to save the $. The currency devaluation that's coming will be part of a helluva recession. Was it the Carpenter's who sang We've Only Just Begun

The advantage Republicans have had on national security matters may be forfeited.

Gee, you would think that Mr. Will might just have taken at little peep a the polls lately.

Indeed, Mr. Will can't just delete the "may be" part, cause polls show people trust Dems more now.

Dems have no reason to stop playing the Iraq bill forward, because the longer the Iraq war is on front pages - the better it is for Dems. The surge was too little, too late - so what else is Bush going to do, except allow the Iraq war to be the number one item all the way up to September. And the Broder cult club GOP can't stop in 9/11 fairy dust.

Bring it on, Bush. That A-hole never did know when to shut the hell up.

err that should be:

Indeed, Mr. Will CAN just delete the "may be" part, cause polls show people trust Dems more now.

Is this why Will thinks he’s “brilliant�, cause he reads the polls and then makes a suggested as if he was the first to have this visionary revelation or something?

Well, actually the easier way to approach it is to try and think of one thing they didn't f...k up. You won't even need a pencil.

Well, Dweb, that Federal "Do Not Call" telemarketing list was a nice touch, I must say.

Beyond that? I got nothin'!

Is George Will confused about 1968 and 1972?

This is the false denouement- the scene near the end of the movie where the loathsome villain has (apparently) been killed, only to rise snarling for yet another fiendish attack on the long-suffering and virtuous survivors of his many bloody rampages.

I always warned my daughter: "You have to kill the really bad ones twice."

long term democrat dominance arguably was aided as much or more by WWII than the depression.

By the time of Pearl Harbor, Democrats had already won three straight presidential elections and had held the Oval Office nearly 10 years. If we can keep the 'pubs out of the executive till 2020 we'll be doing pretty well.

I think that Will is right to some extent...i.e. that the Republican party is in the process of forfeiting its long held advantage on security issues and foreign policy issues that it has held since Vietnam.

That said, this will only lead to long term realignment if the Democrats hammer the Republicans on this issue for the next few election cycles AND provide their own foreign policy vision (something they have not really been able to do yet except to say we should get out of Iraq). The next step for the Democrats is to provide a strategy and plan for how to deal with the Middle East and islamic fundamentalism after we are out of Iraq. That's what will be the determining factor.

I don't think Will is confused about Chicago '68 versus Miami '72. He's just trying to be his usual too clever by half. Hey, look at how he smeared Webb a few months back. It's too hard to get worked up over Humphrey, now, nearly 30 years after his death. (At the time . . .) Chicago was a debacle, '72 nominated McGovern ("The most decent man in the Senate." - Robert Kennedy). Will is just trying to tarnish the Democratic Party, one of his life-long pursuits.

Irony alert: everyone's favorite faux-reasonable concern troll, brian, comments on intellectual honesty.

Bonus: He praises Will for having that quality...

Joe Scarborough led, tonight, with almost the same quote as George Will's - Except it had been written by William F Buckley.

Twenty years ago, when the whole chicken hawk revalaution toook place and first surfaced, and that George Will was among them. Remember this was during the whole Contra scandal and the defense of them. Richared Pearle, Newt Gingrich, Silvester Stallone, Will, Elliot Abrams - all these dudes who loved the contras, though Vietnam was great as long as their asses were'nt on the firing line; all got the College Draft Deferrment (which made the war possible). A friend noted this same George Will with his snivelling defense ". . . the bravery of the Contras" and all, young George in Trinity College with John Stewart Mill in one hand and his dick in another.

young George in Trinity College with John Stewart Mill in one hand and his dick in another.

Damn, now I have to poke out my inner eye with a dirty stick.

Eh, sorry Disputo . . . it's been in MY mind for the past 20 years, I thought I'd share the joy.

Doug-E-Fresh: Yeah, the GOP was so wounded by Hoover that they got stuck with a two term Eisenhower Presidency, and control of the Senate for much of the 1950's.

We need better trolls! Looky here, Doug-E, there were six Congresses that overlapped with the 1950s, beginning with the 81st (1949-51) and ending with the 86th (1959-61). In how many of those did the GOP control the Senate? One. The 83rd, which came into power on Eisenhower's coat-tails. The Republicans lost their majorities in the 1954 mid-term elections and were out of power for the rest of the decade (for several decades as far as the House was concerned).

WWII victory was important for democrats. From 1938 through 1942, they had lost about 120 house seats and 17 senate seats. They reversed the slide with WWII successes prior to the 1944 election. The Republicans continued success in 1946, but then reversed in 1948. So I think Will attributing so much to Hoover probably is mistaken.

This helps to show that in 2008, and certainly beyond 2008, politics likely will be controlled by future events, not by Bush and Iraq.

I think the Republicans will try to have their cake and eat it too. GW will try to keep us in Iraq until he is out. If he can keep us there until then, then anything that happens thereafter is the fault of the Dems!! In fact, they will undoubtedly point to the 2006 election as the point where the Dems lost it for America.

(I'm sure someone here has already pointed this out, but it was on my mind.)

If the GOP find a moderate conservative candidate who acts like a seasoned CEO instead of a fratboy jesus freak, who is willing to get a good policy team behind him, then they can win.

Ah, yeah, that's so simple, so obvious!

One question, though -- can you name one? The GOP talent pool is about a molecule deep. Their "best" includes a wannabe Mussolini (Giuliani), an odious scumbag (Gingrich), a self-debasing has-been (McCain), and a spectrum of bigoted yahoos (Brownback, Tancredo, etc.) Oh, but they do have that one inoffensive guy, Huckabee, whose claim to fame is that he lost a lot of weight, or something.

I wish there were more Republicans in my area, so I could laugh at them and their "talent".

"...even if they do dress nicely and speak in well-modulated tones."

Surely, Kevin, you jest. Footage of that CPAC conference where Coulter called Edwards a "faggot" (in well-modulated tones no doubt) was like a nightmarish sea of bad toupees, scary combovers & ill-fitting polyester suits. Never have people of presumably reasonable means dressed so cheaply & badly. Republican women attire themselves like big-haired Amway consultants stuck in some weird 80s powerdressing timewarp. Most Republicans make tv evangelists & used car salesmen look like fashion plates.

And well-modulated tones? What?!? Never has a President been more mush-mouthed & incoherent than Bush. But beyond the dyslexic, misunderestimated Chimperor, what about chronically mis-speaking, language-mangling Republicans like DeLay, Gonzo, McCain, Huckabee, Brownback etc, etc. Even the grammatically correct Secretary of State, Neo-Condi, has a voice like a rusty gate.

If modulated mastery of the English language & their sartorial style is the best thing Republicans have going for them, they're in even deeper shit than I thought.

Yes the GOP is doomed because of Bush,s hard headed ways, in his mind he is the only one that is on the right track and the rest of us are wrong, you remember, "Mission Accomplished" my azz, we have not accomplished nothing in Iraq except for dead soldiers and stealing the Iraqi oil so George can turn it into cash and put it in the Bush family vault.

The way the economy is headed it is a good chance that the Republicans can be tagged as the party of Iraq and the new depression.

No, a huge majority of Americans are still conservative idiots. By that, I mean they'll still prefer candidates who talk like football coaches over candidates who talk like history professors. The Iraq and Katrina disasters give the Democrats one chance. Then the Republicans will be back, to ruin whatever they haven't ruined yet.

Will at Trinity was probably just building hand strength, so he could hurl handgrenades, if summoned to the front.

The Republicans have money. The bastards will always be able to pay somebody really smart to figure out the perfect new flavor bullshit to feed America.

Why didn't they do that with GWBush? It's like they decided to elect the most incompetent person possible, just to prove that government (at least under Republicans) was a disaster.

Boy George was merely the affable delivery system for the perfect new bullshit in 2000. A candidate like Fred Thompson will work even better next time.

The GOP powerboys are diligently experimenting with recipes for the perfect new bullshit we will be served in '08. By election time an incredible number of voters will be lapping it up.

"...The Gilded Age is back. The wealthy want to flaunt their wealth again. Big business operates with a minimun of government oversight or regulation. The country's natural resources and middle class are getting raped. And then along came George. By himself, he may destroy everthing the Conservative Movement has tried to accomplish for the last two generations. In over-reaching for a permanent, quasi-fascist, theocratic Republican Majority, he has exposed all of the shortcomings of the Conservative Philosophy..."
Posted by: Jim in Colorado on May 1, 2007 at 6:06 PM

He also had quite a bit of help in the Congress. I think that the Schiavo fiasco was the first major event that set the magnetic field going in the opposite direction. That really turned off independent voters. Katrina showed the incompetence. Those two events made the cake. The icing will be the unwinding of Iraq. The cherry on top will be the next recession. The depth and breadth of that recession will probably determine whether Will's idea will hold, not the Iraq debacle. The GOP can always flip to isolationism or return to foreign policy philosophies like Brent Scowcroft's and continue their exploitive populism with the immigration hot button. But that next recession.....

People would say, "Are you going to vote for Nixon in '60?" "No, I don't like Hoover."

He's kidding right? I'm pretty sure people knew enough about Nixon to decide whether they liked him or not. I don't recall a wave of anti-Hooverism sweeping the country in 1960.

Don't forget that, to the right wingers of that day, Eisenhower was a Communist dupe.

Yup. And Ike along with most republicans of the day thought these people were nuts.

My guess is 80% of those who voted for Bush will vote for the next Republican presidential candidate. (Apologies to Vilfredo Pareto.)

well, that means the Democrat will win easily in '08, so the GOP pretty much is doomed as far as the next presidential election is concerned--thank God.

oh, and Iraq won't go away, because Bush won't let it go--so it will be an anchor around the neck of any GOP nominee.

Can't wait to see what his role is in the '08 convention--I'll bet the nominee would prefer not to appear with Bush at all.

Yes, his sunset will be amazing to behold.

Bill Kristol favors the use of force for walking his dog! Prolonged aerial bombardment of the park followed by at least a mechanized brigade to secure critical facilities, a platoon of marines to topple a statue - sadly, however once he and his dog complete touring the charred remains of the park, they are unable to find their ways back out and are stuck there indefinitely.

Sglover commented "I don't think even Nixon inspired the amount of loathing that the Man-Child does."

I am the center of three generations of Nixon haters. My mother thought the "cloth coat" stuff was riduculous. My son watched Watergate hearings in his toddlerhood. This is deeply imbedded.

Recently I have been thinking that Nixon had his good points (intelligence) which somewhat balanced out his loathsome self-pity.

I thought that Nixon was a bad president but I never thought that it was ridiculous that he was president. I was never ashamed of my country for having elected him.