"THIS NEEDS SAYING"

I couldn't agree more:

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help.

UPDATE:  There's a growing sense in the country that after 28 years we're right back to where we were with the Carter Presidency, just before Reagan swept the country with the conservative revolution:

the 2008 tax rebate brings us full circle back to 1980, as the final year of the Bush administration increasingly resembles the final year of the Carter administration -- including national malaise, getting tough on Israel but not on Palestinian terrorists, support for the DC handgun ban, the Olympics hosted by a communist regime with contempt for human rights, and a consensus that the current administration is lacking in competence.

Bush certainly reminds us of the pre-Reagan Presidents.  Massive Federal spending increases like Johnson.  Keynesian macroeconomic policies like Nixon, Ford and Carter.  A war without end fought under politicized rules of engagement like Johnson and Nixon.   Betrayals of the conservative Republican base like Nixon.  An utter disregard for the long term consequences of Federal programs and spending increases like Johnson and Nixon.  I could go on.