The International Writers Magazine: REALITY CHECK 05.18.05

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GOP GRIDLOCK - PARTs I & 11 • James Campion Conservative Insider Unloads On Republican Congress Part Two continued below Social Security, Judges, Putin, Iran, North Korea & Political Suicide

I have known Georgetown for about 15 years now, more or less. He has provided my readers an interesting and oft times hilarious insight to all things Republican, while maintaining his anonymity. It is this anonymity that has allowed him the fresh honesty for and against many policies of his party and this government without reprisal, and whether I agreed with his assessments or argued them our deal has stayed the same: He gives me the inside scoop and his ornery take on it and I print it in this space. Little edits. No pussyfooting. But during these 15 years, he has rarely, if ever, displayed as vehement an opposition to his party’s direction and procedure as he did late last month during our most recent conversation.

As usual, the following is a two-part excerpt of almost an hour of his rants, instigated by your truly to some degree, but it is mostly a candid and strikingly frank assortment of criticisms leveled at the most dominant GOP federal government this republic has ever seen.

jc: The accepted theory on George W. Bush’s first term was that he was far more fiscally and socially conservative than his father, who I know you and many conservatives had problems with, taxes, the Gulf War, etc. Now that evaluation has to come into question. This government has its hand in everything from social issues, private affairs of citizens, restructured environmental issues, Medicare pork, and has managed the most spend thrift budget ever. And this president, who has yet to veto a single bill, has rejected none of these subjects.
Georgetown: I’ll tell you this, there is a serious and growing rift in the party between social conservatives, mostly lobbied by the religious right, and fiscal conservatives, many of which began as hawks during the ramp up to the war, but who now believe it to be a money pit, and one that we will not be able to recover from for at least a decade and has been a detriment to more pressing domestic policies. Period. This is no longer a maybe or if, it is a real and present danger to our control of this congress, and one, in my estimation, that will break the back of the president’s push of Social Security or tax reform. This war is doing to Bush what Viet Nam did to Lyndon Johnson’s ability to govern the country at large. It is badly run and terribly administrated, and if there is isn’t a mass exodus of Republicans in the house and senate by late summer on most of the White House’s agenda, it will be news. These people have to save their asses.
jc: So there’s a battle for the heart and mind of the Republican Party, which ostensibly makes up the United States government right now.
GT: Take the Tom Delay thing for example. There are many Republicans who want this guy hung out to dry. This is bullshit. He has given the Democrats an easy target when we’ve got judges to be nominated, bills on the docket, and this John Bolton thing, which is the lynchpin for the Bush foreign policy in the Middle East. We’re going to shake-up the world politic, right? Let me ask you, do you think Bush likes bringing in the Saudis and having them read all over the Washington Post that his proposed ambassador to the UN is being depicted by fellow Republicans as Attila The Hun? Have you ever seen anything so bush league? It’s dime store politics, and it makes you wonder who the hell is in charge.
jc: But how does Delay’s problems factor into that?
GT: This is the same shit we pulled on Clinton. By the time the Lewinsky thing became public, his ability to govern was nil. He was shot. This killed the Democrats in the mid-term elections and made him one of the earliest lame duck second termers ever. Delay is the face of this government right now. Who the hell wants that? I’ll tell you who, George Bush. His "loyalty" crap is crippling the government and landing the party in a corner. That bullshit with him walking off the helicopter with Delay last week was political suicide. I watched that and thought, "Jesus, we’ve forgotten how we got here." It sure as hell wasn’t on the back of punks like Tom Delay or Bolton for that matter, who is a self-serving bureaucrat, who is so far up Dick Chaney’s ass its scary. You think Dick Chaney cares who runs this government over the next two decades? He’ll be lucky to live past Christmas.
jc: Where’s Karl Rove in all of this?
GT: Not happy, I’ll tell you that much. But Rove is a campaign wiz. He concocted the God vote thing. They needed him to rattle the social cages to bring out the anti-gay, anti-secular, anti anti-war vote. He did his job. You want him to tell Bush to sell these fanatics down the river when he’s beginning a second term? Why? To save the party? He works for George W. Bush. His man has won all the elections he’s going to win. It’s over. It’s our problem now.
jc: But you do support Social Security reform, right? So that means private accounts, and doesn’t private accounts amount to political suicide?
GT: You pick your battles in this town. I applaud the president for his courage to at least broach the subject, but he has to consider that other people need to win elections beside him. He’s done. He will try and hammer away at things for another 16 months and then he will attend a few dinners, make a round trip of the globe, and shuffle off into the sunset. But then what does he do, hand this party over to social liberals like Giuliani and McCain?
jc: So how much does Delay and Bolton and Social Security effect the judiciary nominations?
GT: Killing them. Fucking killing them. And now they want to press the issue of filibuster reform. Holding up judge nominations is as American as apple pie. You always think you’re going to be in control forever, but it’s a pipe dream. There will come a day when the Republicans will need to filibuster again, and then what? Here’s the problem with restructuring congressional power, your force that to be the issue and take the onus away from the nominations, which is wrong. You are supposed to make the Democrats look like stallers and backbiters, not make the party in charge look like power mongers.
jc: Then Delay attacks the courts with the Catholic League over the Schiavo case and it looks like you’re trying to stack the deck.
GT: Exactly. Now you’re playing real life politics.

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GOP GRIDLOCK - PART II 05.18.05
Social Security, Conservative Judges, Putin, Iran, North Korea & Political Suicide

My conversation with Republican insider Georgetown from the last week of April continues.
jc: Let’s just say for the sake of argument you guys can get some semblance of this Social Security reform onto the floor. What are the chances that a compromise can be met?
Georgetown: Before mid-term elections? None. Like I said, there are too many jobs on the line here. This is the issue, political survival, and unless it is handled correctly it could swing the power, or at least senate power back to the democrats. I think it more than a worthy cause, maybe the most worthy cause, but it’s political suicide within 19 months of an election. Democratic opponents in certain districts have already started pouncing. There’s tension building and some of these congressmen and senators are not going to the mat for this, not if their job is on the line, and it is.
jc: In a nutshell, it’s either the battle for judges or Social Security reform.
GT: Yes. If the battle is waged and stymied on one front, it could halt the momentum of the other. The ideological war is currently, and I think dangerously, winning out over the fiscal one, and that is where the main rift between conservatives, fiscal conservatives I’m talking about now, not the bible thumpers, and more moderate republicans lies. The true business hawks have lain low since the election, but they are barking now. We want the judges, sure. We need to fight back on those key social issues, but I believe if there is a knock-down drag-out it should be over Social Security and not gay marriage and abortion or other ancillary moral issues. It defeats the purpose of a congress to be too far-reaching, especially in this divisive a political climate.
jc: I think Social Security reform is inevitable. It might not be the convoluted Bush plan, but it is inevitable. The moral issues come and go and come again. So, I ask you, what survives this administration?
GT: Sadly not the reform.
jc: You think it’s dead.
GT: As a doornail.
jc: Let’s get to this government’s credibility on issuing threats to other nations, Iran, North Korea, whatever, based on intelligence evidence compiled by the CIA and selling the inherent dangers to its people based on the track record leading up to the war in Iraq. Why doesn’t anyone see this as a problem?
GT: I’ll tell you why, because we’re on the righteous course now. This is not a defense plan; this is a restructure policy internationally. We have put the onus on nations to cut the shit, not keep us out of it. This is a change from the Iraq theories of threats by a nation with WMD after being attacked on our own soil. Iraq was sold on security and then freedom. We’re on the freedom track now. Ridding the world of tyrants. Tyrants usually insolate themselves with huge weapons pile-ups. This is now a no-no in the defacto war on terror. I think it a clever tact.
jc: Change the argument to fit the issue.
GT: Right on.
jc: But I don’t think you grasp my point. We are now making allegations against Korea and Iran that are eerily similar to those leveled against Hussein. Now, in the case of Hussein they turned out cooked, but these are dead serious. But with the first having been the big thing on the back of nothing...
GT: It compromises our position internationally? No it doesn’t. We’ve already stated in several places on a myriad of occasions that this is a global war on terror. It is on going. It evolves, and it evolves on our dime and our time. We just move on over to the next bad guy when we see fit. This is the whole thing. It has to move, like a shark. It’s shark foreign tactics. Hit and run, pick the target and stay on it. The best part about this is one of these rogue nations are going to get to the bottom of the Osama bin Laden MIA shit. You just know someone from Iran is going to execute this idiot, so they can claim great friend of the United States and then point the finger if we try and keep them from building a massive war machine. I’m telling you, that’s coming.
jc: What do you make of Vladimir Putin? Is it the same old crap, or is this guy a maverick? And what’s Bush’s fascination with him? If there actually is one. And what’s with this proposed meeting in Russia?
GT: Putin is an imperialist. He will fight for his slice of the Middle East pie. He’s already started. This bullshit with Ariel Sharon, wherein he’s whipping up plans for peace and restructuring settlements in Israel is laughable. He couldn’t give two shits about Israel. It’s a grandstand to get involved in what he sees as a serious doctrine to change the political landscape there. Listen, I’ve always said that you can tell how your foreign policy is going when everyone tries to rip it off for their own gain. Putin is the proof that Bush’s plan, however ass-backwards and inept it can look sometimes, is sound.
jc: But doesn’t Putin have a right to be involved? Even though I share much of your cynicism about his sincerity. I mean, this is happening in his backyard.
GT: Sure, he can do anything he wants. Doesn’t mean it’s not a transparent power grab. I think our president might say as much when he goes to Russia.
jc: And this accomplishes the "Let me play chess with the Arabs, find your own war zone to gut" doctrine?
GT: Funny. Take it on the road.
jc: One last thing about the world stage. Do you think the Brit election will mean a hill of beans to the final three years of this administration or the final months of this congress?
GT: Nope. Small potatoes.
jc: Big ally.
GT: It’s a bit noisy for me.
jc: How many judges do you get through?
GT: One. I think one. Maybe two. A big maybe. It’s a fair fight. No one with a background in these things is complaining. But someone with a conservative record is getting through. Count on it.

© James Campion May 05 .18. 05
realitycheck@jamescampion.com

See also
Politics of the Brain Dead
James Campion on the Schiavo story
Parker Posey stole my car
James Campion
Lay off the Catholics
J C.

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