The Moral Compass of George W. Bush and The Republican Noise Machine

Some time ago, when members of the Bush Administration were in a cocky mood, they used to brag that they didn't react to reality, they created it. What they have created is a mess in Iraq and a corrupt system in Washington. They call themselves Republicans but bear little resemblance to the honest and hardworking Republicans many of us have known all our lives. Nor do they resemble the responsible Republican leaders many of us remember like Howard Baker or Barry Goldwater; nor do they seem to recall a time when Democrats (including myself) found it easy to respect Republicans, even if they disagreed with them.

Things changed about 1994; respect was not offered by the right wing Republicans who started gaining control of Washington when Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House. Bush, Frist, Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert have broken the compact of reasonable leadership in Washington with a general attitude that the Republican Party is above all issues, including the US Constitution and the good of the nation.

Perhaps Bush and his Republican friends do 'create reality' in a perverse way. They have opened the face of their moral compass and have spent years slowly bending the needle to point where no honest man or woman should go. And the games continue as Think Progress notes in this post:

Top conservatives fanned out on television today to defend House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s role in the Foley scandal.

A key talking point: when Hastert learned of the sexually explicit communications, he “dealt with it immediately” by going to Foley and telling him, “Resign or be expelled.” Both Ken Mehlman and Ed Gillespie said Hastert’s bold ultimatum to Foley was something not seen “in thirty years in this town.”

In fact, their entire story is a fabrication, flatly contradicted by the facts....

(snip)

As ABC producer Maddy Sauer has described, Foley decided to resign not after an ultimatum from Speaker Hastert, but after ABC called his office on Friday morning and read Foley staffers the instant messages they had obtained. An hour later, Foley’s office called ABC and told them the congressman would be resigning.

I suspect Americans are getting very tired of the Karl Rove style of doing politics. Nobody in Washington is perfect, and that includes Democrats, but as Americans check their own moral compass against the moral compass of Republican pundits and Republican leaders in Washington, the discrepancy is becoming increasingly clear.