Republicans: The Good, the Bad, and the Dumb

For the good, read The Sunday Herald's Obama: the first 100 hours:

"As we waited to get out of the Mall, lawyer James Ely, a Republican, told me :'I don't agree with him about a lot of things, but it's just a relief to have a president who respects the constitution again.' Bush's final approval rating of 22% is the lowest since Nixon's at the height of the Watergate scandal. Obama inherits an economy in freefall, a trillion-dollar deficit and two wars with no obvious exit strategy. The gift wrapped in all this calamity is that compared to the last guy, he can only look good."

Ok, some Republicans have not drunk so deeply at the well of Conservative ideology that they cannot see what they have done to the country.

Which brings me to the bad and The Washington Post's Civil Wrongs at the Justice Department:

"Supervisors in the division routinely weighed political affiliation or ideology in hiring for career positions, which is a violation of federal civil service laws. Managers referred to some employees hired during Democratic administrations as 'libs' or 'pinkos.' When making hiring decisions, one supervisor, Bradley Schlozman, in conversations and e-mails, stated a preference for hiring conservatives -- or, in his parlance, 'right-thinking Americans' (whom he also referred to as 'RTAs'). According to the report, roughly 64 percent of those Mr. Schlozman hired were considered Republican or conservative; 2 percent had more liberal or Democratic credentials, and the political views of 34 percent were unknown."

Finally, let us talk about the dumb. I saw a bit of John Boehner on Meet the Press. Representative Boehner impressed me with his idea that the Republicans needed to restore themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility. I have never seen such straight-faced gall. This was the party of the bridge to nowhere and other acts of outrageous fiscal irresponsibility. How dumb does he and the other Republicans think the American public really are? Yes, they conned a bare majority into believing Bush/Cheney but we know better than that now. if not, give a look at Torpor Indy's Read This!.