This country is experiencing an erectile dysfunction of a different proportion.  The former elected Dick can’t help repetitiously raising his ugly head and spewing politically charged rhetoric…something that to this point has been considered a historical breach of bureaucratic manners and unwritten domestic etiquette. There is no surprise this isn’t an affliction experienced by Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush.  Hell, even Bill Clinton has managed to keep it down with the rare exception of those few months on the road with his wife.  And honestly, I can never find too many things to compliment “Dubya” on, but I have to hand it to him, when he moved to “Big D”, he kept it deep in the heart of.

Over the last thirteen months, Dick Cheney, bucking years of non-partisan tradition, never met a moment he didn’t like, or a chance he didn’t take, to screw the Obama administration over foreign policy, threats of terrorism, and two left-over wars. The blog, Politico, a recent hand of the former VP’s flogging, published an interesting and balanced article entitled, Why Dick Cheney Attacks that provides some insight.  Whether it’s ideological demagoguery, promoting his upcoming memoir, swaying public opinion, or an attempt to revise history to avoid infamy, matters little in relation to what it indicates about the character of the man.

As the former Vice President, Dick said he has “the great freedom and luxury of speaking out and saying what I want to say, what I believe. And I have not been discouraged from doing so.”  Is this just hubris or the result of being born in a proverbial barn?  Come on, Dick, heads up.  Take your cue from your last Bush boss and try a little professionalism. (Am I really saying that?)  In his first public speech since leaving the Presidency, Mr. Bush said of President Obama, “I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena,” Bush continued. “He deserves my silence.”  Bush 43 went on to say, “I love my country a lot more than I love politics,” Bush also said. “I think it is essential that he be helped in office.”

So, Dick, take the advice of those who have come before you.  Enjoy your retirement. Write your book, hang out with your friend, and if you experience a sustained erection of political ire for more than four hours, consult your physician.

For a party who professes to stand for small government, personal freedoms, and strong defense, the GOP is suffering from an identity crisis.  Ronald Reagan, the deity of the party, proudly announced that government was not the solution to the problem, it was the problem.  Not anymore.  The Bush administration with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Medicare prescription drug plan, the Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind assembled a far reaching and many times intruding expansion of the federal government.  Since the Reagan years, there have been few social issues that the Republican Party didn’t want a hand in, or other part of their anatomy.  From attempts to legislate morality in the Terri Schiavo case, to LGBT civil rights, to immigration reform, the Republicans did little to uphold personal freedoms.  In fact, a case can be made for the GOP trying to take Constitutional freedoms away.  In terms of national defense, the outcome of the last eight years is evident.  We lost our moral conscience and the ethical high road, and in the process, our strength.  George Bush’s Republican Party did more to hurt the GOP’s historical advantage on national security issues than any Republican president in modern times. 

The above mentioned “moderates” have created the National Council for a New America.  It’s not so much we are a “new” America; it’s that today’s GOP is so out of touch that they don’t recognize us anymore.  America has evolved, but the American spirit and ideal is still very much the same.  Darwinian Theory can be applied here as the Republicans continue to exist on all fours while the majority of America has grown a spine and moved on.  A few members of the party have recognized that you either evolve, or you do not survive…but only a few.  They have been met with ridicule and venom from members of the ultra right wing, such as Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh that is usually savored for Liberals.  Seems to me they are doing nothing but undermining their party…but you are going to hear no complaints from me.

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The problem is the loudest and most obnoxious Neo-cons in the party believe the answer to the GOP’s problems is to win the debate or win the argument, not to step back and examine what’s not working.  Though I can’t say I am surprised that the leaders are not accepting responsibility for the last ten years.  Only cowards believe torture is an enhanced interrogation technique. 

The Republican Party has become a party of regional Southern strength where racism and bigotry have a long and ugly history.  The educated, suburban voter across the country has fled the GOP for obvious reasons.  Education level is becoming an easier and easier predictor of political allegiance. Republican problems relating to minorities and younger votes are also well established, but the Neo-con establishment marches on with little acknowledgement of this reality. The GOP has no new clothes; it stands naked before the country old, wrinkled, and flaccid.  God in heaven, gentlemen, cover up.

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