The Road Not Taken - David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=3&src=tptw

Holy Shit. David Brooks effectively severs himself from the Republican party (though many within the party would have argued he did that long ago) and bares a knife for many of his erstwhile fellow travelers, all in one swoop. This article details why the Republican party is where it is today: serving an increasingly small and angry demographic and hoping that social moderates and fiscal conservatives will latch on for lack of a better option.

It is important to remember during this debate the Boehner is not the villain. More likely he is the unwilling warrior, pushed into a fight by others who have little at risk. The presidential candidates we have would have looked alien and surreal ten years ago, serving red meat by the platter but offering little real world benefit. Boehner wakes up each morning and takes a look at the load of horseshit that Michelle Bachmann and every ninny with a microphone has assigned him to lug out in public, and then he faithfully does because he has no choice. He knows he has one slip up and that douche Eric Cantor and his Italian loafers will be running the show and laughing at that poor chump from Ohio. Not on my watch, John Boehner thinks, shoveling more and more horseshit into his open front door.

The villains in this drama are Norquist, Limbaugh, Drudge, etc., those that contorted the Republican position on every issue into "anything that pisses off liberals" rather that which is conservative or practical. Doubt me? Explain to me Sarah Palin, or the whole Iraq War that is suddenly so unpopular and costly. Explain how Dick Cheney is a hero to the right, a man that stood for centralized state power, uttered the phrase "deficits don't matter", showed up to ask Congress to bail out the big automakers, twisted arms for TARP and helped push through every George W Bush program that the current GOP professes to hate. It's because they piss people off and motivate people that want to piss off liberals.

Shock jock policy making has worked because there is a two-party system, and hey, what are you going to do? Vote for the Marxist? But here is Brooks, the canary in the coalmine, signalling those who need to listen, if only they will listen, that the window is closing.