Republicans Incompetent by Nature -- Or is it Nurture, or Does it Matter?

Blogger Scott Shields at MyDD has a great post on the failure of Republican governance prompted by a shocking admission on Fox Sunday News by William Kristol, Editor of the right-wing The Weekly Standard and a primary Neo-Conservative cheerleader. http://www.mydd.com/. It bears on my earlier posts about the importance of formulating a strategy NOW for confronting John McCain in 2008.

On Fox News Sunday, Kristol said:

I think it's become in people's minds an emblem of the administration that just isn't as serious about the competent execution of the functions of government as it should be. . . . [C]onservatives and Republicans agree with the President on basic philosophy . . . but they are worried that they just don’t seem to be able to execute as well as they should be. /p>

Shield makes the following case:

From President Bush on down to the lowest ranking Republican in the House, Rep. Jean Schmidt, the Republican Party controls the federal government. This has been the case for the better part of the last five years, The fundamental failures of government therefore cannot be simply chalked up to George W. Bush's personal incompetence. The problem is that Republican governance doesn't work. Every theory the modern Republican Party bases its policies on has failed the test of realistic implementation. Lower taxes on the wealthy will create jobs and increase revenue? Wrong. People all over the world value Western-style
Democracy over nationality? Wrong. Self-regulation of business will be more effective than government regulation? Wrong. And the list goes on. Before Bush, the policy ideas Republicans held as articles of faith had gone largely untested. … But under the administration of Bush and his rubber-stamp Congress . . . . [m]uch of their policy wish list has become reality. The failures of this government are not simply emblematic of the incompetence of a few at the top. The failures of this government represent the failure of modern Republican ideology altogether.

I heard someone the other day make the great comment that a political party that hates government cannot be expected to run it competently. That includes John McCain, no matter how nice or heroic a guy he is. These are prime times to make the case before the public on the difference between seeing it as THE government – something that exists on its own and can never be an instrument for good as Republicans think – and OUR government: an instrument that is our creation that is supposed to work for all of us.