Dr.Palin,someone is ailin.

Actually,we need a healthy Republican Party.I miss the pre 1980 Republican centrists who were fiscal conservatives,who actually fought for smaller government,and who were social moderates.But today's crowd...don't call the doctor,call the undertaker.

The problem with the GOP is too many spin doctors like Newt, Dick, Rush and Sarah who are a continuation of the old Carl Rove camp. After a while even the most naive become fed up with all the BS and want someone who will tell it straight, but so far no figure is arising out of the GOP to meet this criteria.

This fellow dresses up nicely. I am pleased to see that he takes off his Nazi fan tee when he makes his public outings.

Of course, I am commenting on Clay's artwork in this toon and the last one. Go to the cartoon archives. Same fellow, different costume, no?

I am guessing that this fellow has Cheney in his DNA. The skewed mouth and rolling eyes, I think, recall the former vp.

Talk about hate groups... I give you the crew above.

EaTn: "After a while even the most naive become fed up with all the BS and want someone who will tell it straight."

If that's the case, don't guess you can listen to Pelosi, Franks, or anyone on MSNBC, huh?

Actually wareagleash, I put Pelosi and Franks in the same category as the BS'ers mentioned. The GOP does not have exclusive franchise- much of Washington are in their own little world. They control the money and military and know they can play footsie long enough to survive with a lucrative career.

Why is everything "hate" these days, Rolando?

Surely we can be more subtle and precise. Leave the blunted instruments and cliches to the pundits.

My precise observations apply to the cartoon archives. I thought that I spied a sort of common ancestor in the curtain man and the neo-Nazi.

With that said EaTn, we are in agreement. Although, I have to admit I'm a pretty big Newt fan, and don't believe he fits that group. Where most politicians have a degree in BS, he just has about a semester's worth.

The GOP doesn't need spin doctors at all. They need to deliver a message that resonates with the people of the United States. They have spent so much time mongering fear and telling us who to hate that they seem to have lost their vision for a better America.

Ronald Reagan made us believe in the United States. Cheney makes us not trust our own government.

It's sad to see how far the Republican Party (not all Republicans) has fallen.

All that being said, the Democrats should not get too cocky. There are plenty of blustering fools atop their ranks. They would do well to realize that the Democratic Party did not rise so much as the Republicans sank.

Too often both parties are much more concerned about "winning" than they are about getting it right.

The Republican party needs to stop trying to win arguments and start trying to get it right.

A sure sign of someone who is more concerned about winning the argument than actually being right is their unwillingness to compromise or ever admit mistakes.

Whether or not you believe Obama's willingness to compromise and admit mistakes and take personal responsibility is genuine, he is schooling the Republicans credibility.

Republicans are throwing hissy fits while he remains even keeled and on-message.

The best way for Republicans to gain ground in American politics is to act more like Obama: quit throwing hissy fits and stay on your message.

That's what Reagan did.

I am interested in your points, Moonpie.

Really, I cannot name a single politician today who does not seem somehow small and mean.

But as someone who tries to look to the long-term of history, I wonder at myself for ever thinking it would be different.

To extend that point, I will not take refuge in nostalgia. Even Reagan seems insufficient.

In my attempt to understand _something_ of what happened to the GOP in the late 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, I would look back to the political origins of some of the key players in the early 1970s.

The power of Karl Rove is one topic that I will leave to others. I will simply say that I am impressed by his canny and ruthless rise to power--he _erased_ Ann Richards--and equally curious about his dramatic fizzle and descent. Really, these days Rove cannot make a statement or an appearance that does not set back the GOP cause by years and elections. Whatever happened?

Dick Cheney seems more interesting a figure--well worthy of a history play, a la Richard III, if we still had poets capable. Cast Bush Minor as a princeling and a political tool set upon by a more subtle and crafty player.

Cheney's willingness to trick the laws and the constitution into his own image certainly seems to reflect what he learned in his early years in the Nixon administration. The push to war at all costs of truth and decency also perhaps stems from Cheney's drive to erase the the loss of the White House, the years of exile and the loss of Vietnam. No contest, old scores did get settled.

I am no Bush-basher. Historically, GWB was a symptom, not a cause.

By that reasoning, Obama is also a symptom, but with perhaps more canniness inherent than the feckless, incurious GWB.

Whence comes a cure? Oh, naivete. . . .

"Hate", with a hyphen as in "hate-crime" or without as in "hateful", is a liberal's word, EaTn, and they use it often -- usually in reference to conservatives or something a conservative has done. How many times have you seen the word used by conservatives to describe liberals? [Other than as a pay-back kind of word.]

Liberals consider it --- come to think of it, it is -- a four-letter word and especially nasty when [mis!]applied to themselves.

So there's one answer...

Sorry, my last was misdirected...should have been to InspectorBucket.

Apologies, EaTn...for what it's worth, I don't consider you one of the "hate" folks in any case.

One "something" that happened mid-90s, InspectorBucket, is the rise of the uber-liberal, limited ownership news media. It went hand-in-glove with a few liberals owning the big ones; CNN, NY and LATimes, Chicago whatevers, Time/Newsweek, etc.

Also about then the agenda taught by the liberal colleges began to bear fruit in the form of sheeple graduates.

It was a long road for them but they made it -- up until the last year when its bias became so blatant; hence the rise of the Internet News Service and the fall of the old regime.

The New Right is rising -- the true conservatives who actually love this country, not the RINOs who pretend -- and it is gaining power. That's why Sarah Palin is so deeply feared and hated...she is one of us.

Much of what you say about bias seems legitimate, Rolando.

But please be smarter than to associate yourself with Palin or any group called "the New Right," rising or otherwise. I would prefer to think of you as "plain Rolando," not Palin-Rolando.

Palin is an opportunist of the first order and curious transparency. Her game is to keep her name in circulation and to stay apparent until the next election. And my goodness how the media of all stripes take delight in granting Palin and her family this attention. But then we live in an age defined by reality shows and Britney Spears, so what can we expect?

To see Palin's keen sense of opportunity, one needs only to watch and listen to how quickly she discerned that David Letterman had handed her the golden ticket to media attention. He said "knocked up" and "daughter" in a stupid disposable joke, and she made it a worse joke by inserting a different daughter and "raped" into the sound-bite cycle.

You see how it is done. Palin and Letterman could be a team, handing of set ups and punchlines. Even better, both Letterman and Palin will come out stronger because of the way they play to their audiences and ratings.

By the way, for those who attend words, "sheeple" is a curious term for the effect that Palin, Obama, or anyone has on a crowd.

Did you really ever listen to shortwave, Rolando?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheeple

I too used to tune in on my old radio set and marvel at Cooper and the Hour of the Time show. Those sirens. Those boots. A conspiracy to found the US's secret government going back through the Freemasons to Alexander the Great. Why ever not?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Will...

What great stories, and it all reminds me how those "old-time" shortwave hosts and pirate radio guys gave us an early glimpse of the coming internet and its secret dark alleys of the cultural imagination.

Information will out. . . .

i agree with your comments about Palin. The sad thing is that makes her no different from any other politician as far as I'm concerned.

rolando- no I'm not one of the hate folks. I despise the philosophies of a few folks and groups, but hate- no. Hate is similar to a lingering and terminal illness. I once hated a boss for shafting me over on a position that I deserved, and had lingered for several years. On his retirement I decided that my hate for him hadn't bothered him but had eaten into me severely. I shook his hand and wished him well, and that moment was like a new person sprung to life within me. So pity those who are consumed with hate.

You betcha Clay. That road in Alaska that I said no to, sent that Stimulus money right back to Boma, and my world policy experience with telling Russia to stay off my property makes me the best canidate for the GOP. The women just love me and the men think I am a looker, please can I be the spin doctor?

InspectorBucket, I agree with your assessment of Palen.

It worries me that she got that far in Alaska, and on the ticket for VP.