Frank Rich: Our Foes Are Mindless Machines, Nothing to See Here

Great article, thanks for linking to it. I highly recommend it. In almost every point, he sounds like he read my blog. (Google my name, knowbuddhau.)

He says it twice: everything, including ideology, is sacrificed to "political expediency," this manifests as:
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The Bushian ethos that McCain embraced, as codified by Karl Rove, is larger than any particular vote or policy. Indeed, by definition that ethos is opposed to the entire idea of policy. The whole point of the Bush-Rove way of doing business is that principles, coherent governance and even ideology must always be sacrificed for political expediency, no matter the cost to the public good.
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and as:
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If politics strongarm everything, you end up with the rampant cronyism, nonexistent long-term planning and abrupt, partisan policy improvisations that fed the calamities of Iraq, Katrina and the economic meltdown. Incredibly, McCain has nakedly endorsed the Bush-Rove brand of governance
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Mr. Rich, don't be so naive! Rove' has boasted of his life's work: a permanent Republican majority. The culture wars of the 60s have never ended for them. Just as with their Latin American buddies like Pinochet, this wing of the Republicans is willing to use violent guerilla war to jack and stack electoral bodies that then give them the color of law. The same method that was used deliberately to transfer this mythology from University of Chicago Econ Department basement labs to jacking whole nations is being applied right here, right now.