Republican Grownups Abandon Republican Party

by Stuart Shapiro

Alan blogged earlier today about John Danforth’s and David Stockman’s criticisms of the Republican Party.  The abandonment of the old GOP establishment of the current leadership is even more widespread.  Brent Scowcroft has criticized Republican foreign policy:

In an attempt to rally bipartisan support for the treaty, the White House has enlisted the kind of GOP foreign policy wise men that Lugar exemplifies — among them former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker. But they have had no success with members of their own party, and it has left them scratching their heads over the source of the GOP opposition.

“It’s not clear to me what it is,” said Brent Scowcroft, a former national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush who noted that this START treaty is not very different from previous ones negotiated and ratified under Republican presidents. “I’ve got to think that it’s the increasingly partisan nature and the desire for the president not to have a foreign policy victory.”

I’m sure that some will cry that Stockman, Danforth, and Scowcroft are part of the “Washington elite.” But let’s call it what it is; they’re people who know what they are talking about.  As the Republicans continue to play to their populist base, they will continue to advocate policies that people who know what they’re talking about (my new synonym for the “Washington elite”) will see as driving their country into a ditch.  The question for the next two years is will the people who know what they are talking about be able to save the country from those who don’t (or those who do but pretend not to).

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.