7.27.2007 | Confessions of a disloyal Republican

I used to consider myself a stalwart Republican. With rare exceptions over my voting life, I have voted the straight Republican ticket. My confession? I am disgusted with the performance of the Bush administration and with Republicans in Congress. Disgusted.

Not so disgusted that I could bring myself to vote for a Democrat last year. No, I held my nose and voted for George Allen against now-Senator Jim Webb. And I would never, under any circumstance, vote for Jim Moran. For anything. But he won handily without my vote, thank you very much. Idiots in Northern Virginia who think they're New Yorkers.

But my votes for Republicans, now, and in the foreseeable future will be solely because the other guys are worse. Along the lines of parting company with the Republicans, consider this list of points of disappointment if not disgust made recently by CrunchyCon Rod Dreher:

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.

2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military -- neither in their honesty nor their competence.

3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.

4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.

5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it's the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I'm far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

A lot of this litany translates into a simple statement: Woodrow Wilson was dangerously naive. George Bush is the new Woodrow Wilson, albeit with ugly ties to the Saudis. Of course, Wilson was a Confederate sympathizer and a stone racist, which Dubya is most certainly not. But in foreign affairs? Both have presided over disastrous presidencies.

There's only one point of Dreher's I would seriously dispute: that Republicans are not superior in judgment to the Democrats. Listening to the likes of Obama and the others, this is not supportable in logic.

The central problem? Neither party, under current leadership, can be trusted to do the right thing. I have high hopes that Rudy, or John McCain, or Fred Thompson would serve true American interests better than Bush.

Let me put this differently: the only Democrat who seems to have a clue is Hillary. And I wouldn't trust her with busfare, let alone as commander-in-chief.