Party Love Blinds Republicans to Ugly Truths

Margaret Carlson's latest

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- I've long been searching for a unified theory to explain the Bush administration, and yesterday I got it. According to the New York Times, a soon-to-be-released scientific study of self-described Democrats and Republicans shows that partisan attachment in politics is akin to being smacked out in love.

Common sense vanishes. Rational parts of the brain go dark. The beloved can do no wrong.

The difference between falling in love and falling in line politically is that partisans never wake up and see that the lawn has grown weedy and the toothpaste cap is off. They stay infatuated to the point where countervailing information simply doesn't sink in.

In the study, Republican partisans didn't fault George W. Bush for supporting Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lay even after he was indicted and his employees lost their pensions. Nor did committed Democrats turn up their noses at John Kerry for saying he would overhaul Social Security if elected, something a liberal would otherwise abhor.

Unpleasant Truths

This breakdown in rational thought explains the genius of presidential adviser Karl Rove, who has long understood the extraordinary resistance of the Republican base to unpleasant truths about Bush. The slightest rejoinder to almost any accusation placates them.

In a speech to the faithful at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee last week, Rove resorted to his tried-and-true remedy, the specter of 9/11. ``Ruthless enemies'' require a commander-in-chief who understands ``the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in,'' Rove said. Bush does but ``unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats.''

Yup, if Democrats, with ``their pre-9/11 world view,'' were in charge, we'd all be dead.

That's why so many Bush supporters expect weapons of mass destruction to turn up any day now. That's why they think Katrina went as well as could be expected. Some even believe Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, did a heck of a job.

Unqualified Cronies

Brown and Harriet Miers, the withdrawn Supreme Court nominee, together dented Bush's base so little he didn't hesitate to ram through two more shockingly unqualified cronies, Julie Myers and Ellen Sauerbrey, to important posts though neither has a shred of relevant experience. (Myers heads the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and Sauerbrey runs the State Department's refugee program.)

When it looked like privacy-loving conservatives might object to warrantless wiretapping, found to be illegal by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Bush renamed the effort the Terrorist Surveillance Program and contended that everyone thought it was perfectly fine.

Too-much-in-love-to-see is the only explanation for the lack of outrage over so many ruinous initiatives. There's the prescription drug bill that costs $700 billion, not $400 billion, and drives seniors crazy figuring it out.

The ones most helped are the insurance companies, who finally got to privatize a piece of Medicare, and the drug companies, who deep-sixed bulk purchase discounts. Would this be happening if consumer groups had a private jet instead of Schering-Plough Corp.?

Puppy-Love Blind

You'd think there would be some Republicans sick or old or poor enough to fall out of love.

There's more: Two days ago, the Washington Post reported that a few Republicans went behind closed doors, took a bill that was supposed to recapture $26 billion for taxpayers from insurance companies and instead gave $22 billion of it back.

Is puppy love the reason so many Americans are blind to the incompetence and waste of Republicans -- who at a minimum are supposed to be good money managers -- running Iraq reconstruction?

Bush said it wouldn't cost much to invade, occupy and fix Iraq, and whatever it cost, oil revenue would pay for it. None of that is true.

Shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills are stuffed in backpacks and thrown off the back of trucks tooling around the country. California Democratic Representative Henry Waxman found that $12 billion was dispatched in ``cashpaks'' from the Federal Reserve in a shipment weighing 363 tons.

No-Bid, No Questions

It's an economy where bigwigs put down $1 million in cash for 20 armored BMWs and Land Cruisers that no one can find, of multimillion-dollar R&R houses with gold-plated chandeliers, of contractors like Halliburton Co., which practically write their own no-bid contracts. Independent reports claim Halliburton bilked the government out of $218 million on a $1.6 billion contract.

Last year, the inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction confirmed we were being robbed blind over there, but nothing happened.

There is no accountability. In one case, when an agent of the inspector general visited a hospital where American officials paid $662,800 to fix the elevator, he learned that a few days earlier the elevator had crashed and killed three people.

A year ago the inspector general reported there was no way of knowing what happened to almost $9 billion of $12 billion sent, an amount that has grown in the last year to $20 billion of $25 billion sent. Mission not accomplished.

As a columnist, I realize that whatever amount of corruption I expose, half my readers will block it out, although they may get a frisson of joy in the process. According to the study, the pleasure center of the brain is excited the moment when negative information about the beloved politico is being rejected. In the sometimes perverse way of love, I make happiest those who disagree with me most.