THE REVERSAL IN THE POLLS MEANS THE RETURN OF THE OBLIGATORY NAZI REFERENCE:

The Disastrous Rule of a Mayberry Machiavelli (Sidney Blumenthal, September 20, 2006, AlterNet)

No one predicted just how radical a president George W. Bush would be. Neither his opponents, nor the reporters covering him, nor his closest campaign aides suggested that he would be the most willfully radical president in American history.

In his 2000 campaign, Bush permitted himself few hints of radicalism. On the contrary he made ready promises of moderation, judiciously offering himself as a "compassionate conservative," an identity carefully crafted to contrast with the discredited Republican radicals of the House of Representatives. After capturing the Congress in 1994 and proclaiming a "revolution," they had twice shut down the government over the budget and staged an impeachment trial that resulted in the acquittal of President Clinton. Seeking to distance himself from the congressional Republicans, Bush declared that he was not hostile to government. He would, he said, "change the tone in Washington." He would be more reasonable than the House Republicans and more moral than Clinton. Governor Bush went out of his way to point to his record of bipartisan cooperation with Democrats in Texas, stressing that he would be "a uniter, not a divider."

Trying to remove the suspicion that falls on conservative Republicans, he pledged that he would protect the solvency of Social Security.

Actually, George W. Bush won precisely because he ran as a revolutionary, not least on the issue of Social Security. What few predicted -- particularly on the Left -- is how successful he'd be in advancing Third Way policies like the FBI, HSAs, school vouchers, free trade, etc. In fact, SS is the only major issue where Democrats have been able to hold out against the revolution and, even there, they couldn't stop the retirement reform bill that shift private companies away from pension plans and towards 401ks.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 20, 2006 12:00 AM