1 Boring Old Man

Fukuyama got me to thinking some. The Bush Administration has tried to play to three main groups – groups that don’t have much to do with each other. The most obvious group is the moneyed elite, business leaders, corporations, that Social Registry he refers to as "my base." The second group, the heartlanders, are mostly non-urban Christians, the "good people" with "family values." The third group is more a consortium than a cohesive group, known as Neoconservatives – intellectuals, hawks, Zionists, disillusioned Liberals – the people behind the "Bush Doctrine." The only other force I know of is this "Unitary Executive" idea, and frankly, I think that has more to do with Bush, Cheney, and Rove and their personalities than with any group or ideology. They’re just bullies.

It kind of reminds me of that country song by The Oakridge Boys:

Trying to love two women is like a ball and chain.
Trying to love two women is like a ball and chain.
Sometimes the pleasure ain’t worth the strain.
It’s a long old grind, and it tires your mind.

The Bush Administration has played to the sickest element of each of these groups.

• He’s consorted with the lobbyists, the shady business interests, cut taxes when it was a bad idea, run up the deficit.
• He’s played to the whacky religious right who oppose homosexuality even existing and think that abortion is the single most important issue in the Kingdom of God.
• And he’s turned the more philosophical ideology of the Neoconservatives into a "we’ll kick some ass" foreign policy that’s an embarassment for all times. While I wouldn’t agree with Neoconservativism at its best, I would see their ideas as interesting. Bush’s version is more in the "let’s play cowboys and indians" range than part of any serious dialogue.

Couple playing to the whacko side of things with the Bush, Cheney, Rove lack of integrity and power hunger, and you can make hell of a mess in the world. In the end, he’s hurt all three groups of constituents. He’s done the rest of us in America irrepairable harm. And he has, indeed, made hell of a mess in the world.