Likelihood of Success

“The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped,” writes Bruce Fein in Slate.  He goes on to say that Cheney must be impeached.  Impeached!

Forget about that — that’s one stupid and irrational idea that’s not going anywhere. (But hat tip to Ali Eteraz.) No, what’s noteworthy is just how much the conservative community has come to loathe this Administration, which, from its (“our,” I guess) perspective, gave us nothing, or worse, except Justice Roberts.

“Writes Bruce Fein in Slate” — parlous times, indeed.

Or is it?

Fein was, indeed, a deputy Attorney General in the Reagan Administration. But he’s been gunning for this one for years now. He wrote in Slate last week, too, on the White House email dustup. He gives interviews to Truthout. From all indications, he is sincerely exercised about this Administration, and has been for a long time. But it is not newsworthy, at this point, that he is raising the volume higher and higher, now making absurd impeachment threats and relying on a now threadbare resume from the Reagan years. (It’s notable for someone with that profile to be in something other than a major Washington firm, but I don’t know exactly what it does mean, so I just point it out.)

He’s not a shill for either “side,” is Fein — I agree with this recent article by him, for example, criticizing the preposterous claim by reporters that they are exempt from the law by virtue of some imagined First Amendment emanation the insulates them from the normal duties of citizenship. That’s a conservative position, in my view, so he is no “civil libertarian” in the left-wing sense of the phrase. He has even said he is “not anti-President Bush.”

So what, exactly, happened to Bruce Fein? Because while there is much to despise about this Administration, this article suggests he’s gone off the deep end. Any helpful links would be appreciated — I can’t find anyone who has analyzed this question.

Glenn Reynolds reads our very transparent minds and ponders:

WHAT SHOULD REPUBLICANS DO as the GOP seems to be committing suicide? I dunno — saving the GOP isn’t my job, and if the Democrats weren’t worse on national security I wouldn’t mind much. (And the GOP advantage there seems to be shrinking anyway).But you’ve got three basic choices: Exit, voice, and loyalty. …

Problem is, people have been exercising “voice” a lot and it’s clear that President Bush, Trent Lott, et al., don’t care and aren’t listening. … I think the GOP’s vulnerability to a third party challenge has just gone way up.

I’ll say. I’ve never been more disgusted, and that’s from a lifelong Republican and occasional activist who still voted for Clinton in 1992. Yes, I’m more disgusted than I even was then.

I never liked Trent Lott, and the fact that he was elected the Minority Leader in the Senate was a red flag. GWB has lost me completely on the immigration issue and his utter lack of leadership, right now, on just about anything. Not only that, but I am so disgusted that what I once willing to overlook for what I believed to be the Cause, I retroactively do not. The unbridled spending… the cronyism (which I have not hesitated to criticize before)… the complete surrender of the message on the Iraq war and, yes, the failure to communicate effectively about just about anything, certainly since the 2004 election.

What a squandered, ugly moment for Republicans conservatives like me. What a shame for America.

And, yes, what an opportunity for a third party candidate. And what an interesting moment for, in my view, Rudy Giuliani to ask himself if he might, perhaps, be that candidate — an idea so daft for the front-runner it just might work.

Remember I said that John Edwards’ problem was that the class warfare he seeks is pointing right back at him?

Well, even if you don’t remember, I did and it is. (Hat tip to Insty.)