In the 500-page book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” Mr. Greenspan describes the Bush administration as so captive to its own political operation that it paid little attention to fiscal discipline, and he described Mr. Bush’s first two Treasury secretaries, Paul H. O’Neill and John W. Snow, as essentially powerless.Mr. Bush, he writes, was never willing to contain spending or veto bills that drove the country into deeper and deeper deficits, as Congress abandoned rules that required that the cost of tax cuts be offset by savings elsewhere. “The Republicans in Congress lost their way,” writes Mr. Greenspan, a self-described “libertarian Republican.”

New York Times –> Andrews and Sanger –> Former Fed Chief Attacks Bush on Fiscal Role

Of course, it is no surprise to this writer that the Bush Administration is guilty of abandoning the principles that were supposed to adhere to the Republican party. I have lost track of the number of individuals that I have encountered who claim to have lost any sense of belonging to the Republican party because their main reason for staunchly defending it in the past was fiscal conservatism and responsible strong defense. We now have neither. The military is stretched beyond our ability to quickly or economically rebuild it and that stretching extends to the National Gaurd as well. The consequence is that these friends and acquaintances fail to see themselves and their values in the Republican party.

It will be interesting to see how the situation develops and if the Republican party can recover or if the Libertarian party can become more recognizable as a stronger and more viable alternative.  

It seems that more people than this humble blogger have felt that Mr. Bush and his administration lack the ability to listen. BlueDreamer has often remarked that his study of terrorism and Middle Eastern extremists has left him with the distinct awareness that we struggle with much that was known to those who study these things. Once again, the anti-intellectualism and blind ideology of this administration is clear to see.