REPUBLICANS LIKE TALKING ABOUT" TAR BABIES" BUT NOW THEIR PARTY'S DESPISED LEADER IS THE BIGGEST ONE OF ALL

Today's Washington Post is reporting that Republicans up for re-election in November are running for their political lives to avoid George W. Bush. Even the absolute worst brain-dead rubber stamp robots have finally figured out that association with Bush and his catastrophic policies will mean giving up their beloved congressional perks. "On Capitol Hill Rep. Mark Kennedy (MN) and Sen. James M. Talent (MO) are known as loyal Republican soldiers, reliable votes for President Bush on tax cuts and the Iraq war. In elections past, they have aired advertisements featuring the president and have stumped with him at public rallies. This year, both are running for Senate seats, but their television ads have made no mention of Bush-- and have been conspicuous in distancing the candidates from their partisan affiliation. 'Most people don't care if you're red or blue, Republican or Democrat,' Talent's ad states. A recent ad from Kennedy says, 'He doesn't do what the party says to.'"

Even members of the GOP congressional leadership like model rubber stamp automaton Tom Reynolds, head of the NRCC, has purged the word "Republican" from his TV spots. When Larry King asked Bush recently if he would endorse his and Ann Coulter's favorite Democrat, the Lieberhund, Bush said he wasn't saying because he knew his endorsement would be the political kiss of death for a Democrat who the Republicans desperately need to give Bush's extremist policies a shallow patina of bipartisanship. But what can Bush say about Republicans not wanting any more of his smooches?

Suddenly all these right wing extremists who have marched in total lockstep with the worst and most fanatical policy initiatives in the history of our country are trying to say they are independent and moderate-- even whack-jobs like Conrad Burns (MT), Jim Talent and Mike DeWine (OH), 3 senators who don't even bother reading the bills they vote for. Same in the House where rubber stamp clones like Heather Wilson (NM), Clay Shaw (FL), and Jim Gerlach (PA) have managed to find one vote out of hundreds where they differed with Bush in a laughable attempt to claim they are independent and fighters for their constituents. Some of the Republican legislators and candidates have gone so far as to run to the press to publicly distance themselves from the Bush Regime, although few in a more pathetic and half-assed way than Michael Steele or in a more disdainful way than John Thune.


It isn't likely that Democrats will let their opponents off the hook and although no Republican in his or her right mind gets anywhere near Bush and a camera (Randy Kuhl and the KKK's Marilyn Musgrave being two clearly not in their right minds), Democrats have voting records and old photos to have lots of fun with. (You might want to come up with a caption for Marilyn and Bush at the top of the page. The one down here at the bottom was snapped by Karl Rove himself as Bush campaigned for the only congressman in New York who invited him to his district-- a district where Bush's abysmal approval ratings are likely to help Democrat Eric Massa win Kuhl's seat.)