The GOP and preemptive self-destruction

I don't know how they do it.

Chris Christie will in extreme probability be battling indictments as well as impeachment as conservatives begin gathering to select their next presidential sacrifice, their singular hope of any respectable showing then being uniform support of some Christie-like Jeb Bush. Yet today the WSJ's Washington Wire is nearly effusive in its speculation about, believe it or not, a John Bolton run.

The paper anticipates Republicans' 2016 to be "far feistier" than their deranged melee of 2012, and it asks with a drooling innocence normally reserved for non-journalistic institutions, "is there opportunity in running as the party’s resident hawk?" 

The WSJ also quotes--with some favor, it seems--Hugh Hewitt's charmingly suicidal endorsement of Bolton: "He will make the others on the stage squirm, just like Newt did." Which is kind of the whole point of conservatives needing to discourage the warmongering Bolton from running, but, there you go.

Or rather there they go, piecing together yet another campaign season of historic alienation. I really don't know how they do it.

To answer the WSJ's question about the political opportunities that await Bolton's insane jingoism, last September, according to Pew Research, only 29 percent of Americans favored U.S. intervention in Syria; 36 percent, according to Gallup. Many of those thus favorably disposed were Democrats, naturally, leaving a Republican contingent of scattered VFW and American Legion outposts.

But yes of course, why not encourage Bolton to make other GOP candidates squirm over a profoundly unpopular ideology?

I just don't know how they do it.

 

Comments

[Jon Ponder]

Hewitt is right but only in the sense that "squirming" is a form of "cringing."

[Peter G]

I think this is why they are concentrating their efforts on control of state governments. The executive office is a lost cause barring some accident of history. Their nominee, whoever it might be, is going to get about 47 percent of the vote. If they know they are going to lose anyway might as well go with the strongest shit slinger.