Are Republicans nuts?

First off, full disclosure:

Until the start of this year, I was a Republican, and had been for almost a decade.

Now -- don't get me wrong -- during most of that time I only voted for one GOP candidate for national office and that was in a primary, voting for John McCain against G.W. Bush, who I had earlier investigated and dismissed as probably dishonest (criminal insider trading that Bush "Sr" Justice Department lawyers had wanted to prosecute but a prosecution which incoming president Bill Clinton pulled the plug on apparently in the interests of political comity).

McCain was savaged and his family attacked in a series of truly vile rumor and innuendo attacks by Bush operatives and lost that primary race and I ended up voting Democratic in the general election (and again in 2004).

It soon became clear that my estimation of GW Bush had been far too kind.

He was not just incompetent and dishonest -- he was stupid, incompetent, and dishonest -- and he claimed to get his marching orders from no less than God. Which is blasphemy, where I come from, but that's for the religion blog, eh?


Anyway, that was then and this is now... the record of Bush and his neoconservative handlers is there for everyone to see. It's a painful, utterly disgraceful record of incompetence, lies, corruption, and an arrogance so extraordinary -- and so unwarranted -- as to all but defy credulity.

And now John McCain is the presumed GOP nominee and he has sloughed off his own supposed convictions and publicly adopted many of those of the very same GW Bush whose minions so vilely libeled McCain and his family.


Why?

It's a good question.

Recent polling reveals some answers.

Even though the overwhelming majority of US citizens seem to now share my exceedingly low estimation of the sitting president -- only 28% of Americans in recent polls approve of Bush's performance -- within the Republican Party, Bush is still largely seen favorably. A jaw-dropping 60 percent of Republicans still approve of GW Bush's performance as president.


One has to wonder just what their performance criteria are. What more could this president do to demonstrate his extraordinarily deep and wide ranging incompetence?

Well... there's one more thing, we suppose... and it would be the cherry at the top of the s--- sundae: an attack on Iran by Israel at the urging of Bush and with assisatnce from US forces and intelligence. Such an attack has been in the rumor and planning stages for some time. Originally, Bush's neocon handlers apparently thought it would provide the next "demonstration war" after quick victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, likely to be executed by US forces.

Now, with the US military run into the ground by incompetent leadership from the Secretary of Defense on down as it tries to shore up the woefully mismanaged Iraqi and Afghan occupations which have fostered popular revolt in both countries, there is little recourse but to attempt to get Israel to carry out the attack.

And the Republican base seems to think this is just ducky.


What world do these people live in?