Josh Marshall

"Theres this old line the wise folks in Washington have that "its not the crime, but the cover-up."But only fools believe that. Its always about the crime. The whole point of the cover-up is that a full revelation of the underlying crime is not survivable."

"With all the efforts now to disassociate President Bush from conservatism, I am starting to believe that conservatism itself — not the political machine, mind you, but the ideology — is heading toward that misty land-over-the-ocean where ideologies go after theyve shuffled off this mortal coil. Sort of like the way post-Stalinist lefties used to say, "You cant say Communisms failed. Its just never really been tried."But as it was with Communism, so with conservatism. When all the people who call themselves conservatives get together and run the government, theyre on the line for it. Conservative president. Conservative House. Conservative Senate.What we appear to be in for now is the emergence of this phantom conservatism existing out in the ether, wholly cut loose from any connection to the actual people who are universally identified as the conservatives and who claim the label for themselves.We can even go a bit beyond this though. The big claim now is that President Bush isnt a conservative because he hasnt shrunk the size of government and hes a reckless deficit spender.But lets be honest: Balanced budgets and shrinking the size of government hasnt been part of conservatism — or to be more precise, Movement Conservatism — for going on thirty years. The conservative movement and the Republican party are the movement and party of deficit spending. And neither has any claim to any real association with limited or small government. Just isnt borne out by any factual record or political agenda. Not in the Reagan presidency, the Bush presidency or the second Bush presidency. The intervening period of fiscal restraint comes under Clinton."

"The president just seems to be living in some sort of alternative universe populated by the failed gods of his narcissism and vainglory."

"Authoritarianism and secrecy breed incompetence; the two feed on each other. Its a vicious cycle. Governments with authoritarian tendencies point to what is in fact their own incompetence as the rationale for giving them yet more power."

"In the popular political imagination were familiar with the neocons as conniving militarists, masters of intrigue and cabals, graspers for the oil supplies of the world, and all the rest. But here we have them in what I suspect is the truest light: as college kid rubes who head out for a weekend in Vegas, get scammed out of their money by a two-bit hustler on the first night and then get played for fools by a couple hookers who leave them naked and handcuffed to their hotel beds."

"Primitive animals will sometimes keep chattering or twitching their muscles even after their heads have been cut off. And thats probably the best analogy today to the presidents continuing enunciation of his policies."

"To the president the Democrats should be saying, Double or Nothing is Not a Foreign Policy.The great bulk of the public doesnt believe this president any more when he tries to gin up a phony crisis. They dont believe hed have much of an idea of how to deal with a real one. Enough of the lies. Enough of the incompetence and failure.No buying into another of the presidents phony crises."

"If you think back to the Swift Boat debacle of 2004, the surface issue was John Kerrys honesty and bravery as a sailor in Vietnam. Far more powerful, however, was the meta-message: George Bush slaps John Kerry around and Kerry either cant or wont hit back. For voters concerned with security and the toughness of their leaders, thats a devastating message — and one that has little or nothing to do with the truth of the surface charges. Someone who cant fight for himself certainly cant fight for you. At the time I called it the "Republicans bitch-slap theory of electoral politics."