Republican Ragnarok (“Doom of the Gods”)

Did you catch the head of the Republican Senate declaring that we should just let by-gones be by-gones and invite the Taliban back into the Afghan government?  All while Baghdad lifts it's daylight curfew to a new day with the same old daily killing -- three and a half years after we were supposed to be "greeted as liberators."

I'm with Josh Marshall:

Is it me or is all hell breaking loose in this country's politics? We're in the last month of an election cycle and there are maybe four or five stories, each of which could totally dominate the national political news on their own. And each is flaming out of control at once. You've got the Foley debacle. The revelations in the Woodward book. The NIE revelations that almost seem like old news now. A major part of the pre-9/11 story that somehow never saw the light of day and may bring down Condi Rice. And did I mention the election?

I've been a political junkie since I was a teenager.  I still have the newspapers documenting Watergate, saved as relics of living through history.  But I've never seen anything like this.  Not even close.

The thing is, Josh didn't even get all the highlights.  These are only today's stories.  Did you notice the Supreme Court is taking up the late term abortion ban?  Was that even a blip on the radar?

You are aware, despite the Detainee Act's obvious unconstitutionality, doomed for it's denial of habeas corpus and meaningless definition of unlawful combatants left up to the capriciousness of the President making it void on it's face for vagueness -- yet it still is quite effective in granting the Team Bush a legislative pardon for torturing captives to death?

Hey, remember that Valerie Plame thingy?  How about the War Profiteers?  I seem to remember something about a guy named Jack Abramoff who had a lot more White House contacts, and influence, than anyone wanted you to know.

It's really overwhelming.  These are the Republican tough guys who say double-amputee Purple Heart veterans are cutting and running.

They are the incompetent hacks who won't put in enough troops to fight to win Iraq, and can't withdraw anybody without creating a disaster, are paralyzed by the prospect of a lousy midterm election.

These Texan Torquemadas can't do right by our service men and women, can't do right by the parents, children and spouses of our kids who are taking an attack every 15 minutes, can't do right by America or Iraq.

The hope/promise is that things will change after they get through the election.  The craven self-interest of the powerful clinging desperately to their prerogatives is on pathetic display. They smugly counter their critics with accusations that the Democrats offer no plan, no alternative, only attacks against the status quo that has closed them off from influence -- then mockingly sneer at their disarray and impotence.

But what is their plan?  What is their version of the secret Nixonian strategy for "Peace with Honor" designed to placate the growing anti-war sentiment while offering the reality of only more of the same as a post election revelation?

Their vision, unbelievably (as if more "R U F-ing Kidding Me" surprises would be surprising) is to borrow from the mastermind of Vietnam himself, Henry Kissinger. (I swear, I never took acid during the 70's. So why am I having this Watergate flashback about Bob Woodward exposing a bunch of liars on Pennsylvania Ave.?)

Their plan?  (No, seriously dude, I didn't forget.)  To survive the gathering storm, the army of malcontents, the disgusted and exasperated.  That. Is. All.  They want to survive the election so they can prepare for the next one.

They offer pabulum that we will win by being victorious, we will be victorious by winning.  As the Cheer-Leaker in Chief hits the campaign trail to rally his dwindling base, the platitudes sound even more hollow than a coach telling the alumni that the plan to beat their arch rival is to score more points.

It's a joke.  Well, it would be if this were sports.  But even then, the coach better start talking about X's and O'x after breaking the ice with that quip or start reviewing his resume.

Worse, everybody knows it's a joke, even the die-hard neocons.

Bill Kristol can be seen on Fox News admitting his pet war is a debacle and the Administration cannot/will not fix it.  He blames the democratic process itself for the paralysis, preventing us from bringing that very process to Iraq.

Words fail.  They're just making it up as they go, out of thin air.

Glenn Greenwald is linking favorably to stories in the Moonie times, Michele Malkin and John Cole of Balloon Juice.  He agrees with them?!?

Somewhere, a piece of the sky just fell on a chickenhawk -- who never saw it coming.

I'm linking, favorably, unbelievably, to Hot Air's Allahpundit, who's "done with the GOP."  He did kinda prove Dean Esmay's horribly stated and repulsively defended point, however:

“Moderate Islamists.” As if the degrees of Islamic radicalization weren’t hard enough to keep track of, now we’ve got “moderate Islamists” in the mix.

RadicalMuslimExtremistsIslamistsFascists? Hell, I'm having trouble keeping up with all the GOP crap that just hit the turbo-fan.