Republican Party Propaganda Writer Andrew Ferguson Dissects McCain's Platform

Officially Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of the neo-fascist Weekly Standard, but he's been a notorious shill for the Bush Regime for many years. Yesterday the NY Times published an Op-Ed by him that examines the McCain Party platform. He starts with an unpleasant dose of reality about what it was like for the platform writers: "This one must have been no fun at all. Republicans this year faced a special difficulty, of course. Every American who’s not a Republican can’t stand them, a complication that robbed the platform writers of several traditional techniques." He then follows with why the platform writers were up that special creek without any paddles. "If your party holds the White House but not Congress, you blame Congress for the country’s precarious position. If you hold Congress you blame the White House. But what if, for most of the previous eight years, you’ve held both the White House and Congress, and things are still a mess?" The solution? Join the parade and do what everyone else is already doing: blame Republicans.

The writers distinguish between the grossly incompetent and corrupt Republican officeholders in Washington who created the mess and the terrifically thoughtful and luminous “grassroots Republicans” who sent the corrupt Republican officeholders to Washington in the first place. (We are to assume, needless to say, that John McCain and Sarah Palin are as grassrooted as Republicans can be.)

“The American people believe Washington is broken... and for good reason,” the draft concedes, without conceding too much. Special interests rule, expediency triumphs, congressmen are indicted. No need to mention any names.

Instead, the platform goes on, “As grassroots Republicans, we demand a return to our party’s core principles.” Such a revival, the platform implies, will fix just about everything.

OMG! No wonder John Boehner, House GOP Leader couldn't wait to go running to the media and announce that tomorrow's convention sessions are being called off! Bush and Cheney, who might expect to not feel too much love, had already joined scores of Republican senators and congressman declaring they're staying as far away from the "festivities" (which many see as a wake for the GOP) as possible. Boehner added that "It is doubtful there will be any kind of program tomorrow night." So aside from Bush and Cheney, what will the TV-viewing American people be missing out on? I think two of their biggest stars, Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA) and Rick Perry (TX) had already backed out, one to make believe he's handling a budget crisis and the other to make believe he's keeping Gustav at bay. And the ones who were to speak-- basically the far right ideological lunatics who have brought so many problems to our nation in the past seven and a half years-- freaks like Mitch McConnell (KY), Richard Burr (NC), Norm Coleman (MN, who has told everyone who would listen that he wouldn't even be going if it was in any other state but his own), John Ensign (NV), Joe Lieberman (CT), Boehner himself (although I think he is scheduled for Tuesday, along with Howdy Doody and Marsha Blackburn as well), Michele Bachmann (MN), Tom Cole (OK), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL, who fancies himself, by dint of birth, the next president of Cuba), Thelma Drake (VA), Mark Kirk (IL), Kevin McCarthy (CA), and a pathetic gaggle of wanna-be candidates like Chris Hackett (likely to be the only GOP challenger to win this year, since he is going up against a Democrat, Chris Carney, who votes like a Republican), Erik Paulsen (MN), Cynthia Lummis (WY), and Jay Love (AL).

One Republican incumbent pointedly not invited to speak or get anywhere near the platform is radical right maniac, Scott Garrett of New Jersey, one of only 11 members of Congress who voted against giving aid to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans on September 8, 2005. All 11 were far right Republican ideologues, of course, and this brings us right back to Fergusons' Times Op-Ed, claiming the platform, like McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, has a kind of "devil-may-care flavor."

“Republicans,” the platform says, “will attack wasteful Washington spending immediately,” even though they can’t. They can’t impose anything on anybody, either, but nevertheless “we will impose an immediate moratorium on the earmarking system.”

Powerlessness opens up a limitless future. It has the fierce urgency of not right now.

As for the core principles, they’re the same ones you’ll remember from back when the Washington Republicans were violating them: less regulation, smaller government, an end to bureaucratic “social engineering.”

But the urge to stick their fingers into other people’s business is too much for even Republicans to resist, as the Bush years have shown. The draft platform condemns the current tax code for its endless complications, for example, and then proposes several ways to make it more complicated: a tax-free Lost Earnings Buffer Account and a Farm Savings Account, more elaborate tax-free accounts for education and medical expenses, credits for people who don’t get health insurance at work and enough alternative-fuel tax incentives to make T. Boone Pickens hop up and down in anticipation.

It has something for everyone, the way platforms do, leaving the impression of a government that is not so small, not very limited, and busy, busy, busy.

The platform is also comprehensively solicitous, specializing in the political equivalent of narrowcasting-- “narrowpandering” might be the term-- which hits a bull’s-eye with a tiny constituency and leaves the rest of us puzzled. “We support the Native American Samoans’ efforts to preserve their... land tenure system.” Make fun if you want, but somewhere in Samoa at least one Republican is very happy.

One passage nicely summarizes the Republican approach to government, at the dawn of its long exile from power-- bold and feckless, all at once. In a section on “Technology and Innovation,” the platform’s authors look to the heavens. They write, “As a symbol of that commitment, we share the vision of returning Americans to the Moon as a step toward a mission to Mars.”