GOP: Two Views (One Liberal, One Conservative) One Conclusion (Ozymandius)

Peggy Noonan, a stalwart Republican, wistfully, sadly, comments on the party’s woes. Here’s the money quote from her discussion with a GOP official:

"We can't let them (Democrats) pretend to be conservatives," he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

E.J. Dionne tells a similar tale from his perch on the left side of the political scene. Although I don’t share his politics, I like him because his logic is always clear and his comments are rarely nasty or derisive. If you must hear bad news from an ideological opponent, he’s the one you want delivering it. He talks with Bob Corker, Republican senator from Tennessee. It’s a good read.

Although approaching this self-made disaster from opposite sides, both Noonan and Dionne come to a similar conclusion: The GOP National Committee is out of touch, plastering every Democratic opponent as a big spending liberal. The label doesn’t always fit, and voters at the local level know it and have rejected it. The President’s mishandling the war and immigration added to people’s disenchantment with the party.

I can’t help but recall the poem Ozymandius by Percy Shelley. It speaks of a traveler to a distant land who encounters the ruins of a once-fearsome monument to a long-forgotten ruler:

My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Look upon your works, ye cowering and craven Republican politicians, and despair!