Failure

From Paul Krugman in The New York Times, where good stuff disappears unless you subscribe...

"In other words, this administration is all politics and no policy. It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern."

Yes -- this is the essence of the Republican party's failure at the national level. Willing to do or say anything to gain power, they put no effort into doing something with the power once gained.

If the neocons executed some brilliant world policy moves that actually made the world a better or safer place, the Republican party could argue that the ends justified the means. FDR certainly deceived the American public in the years just before the Second World War, but few people would argue that The United States should have maintained its neutral stance. History is full of such examples.

But what ends did Republican tactics justify? A failed Social Security reform and a disastrous prescription drug plan? A clumsy push to war that lost the U.S. most of its allies and all of its moral authority? Rampant cronyism? A stagnant economy burdened by debt?

This bothers me so deeply. Why fight so hard for something you have absolutely no intention to use? Why pull out every dirty trick in the book only to squander the spoils of victory?