Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Sculpture from Anselm Kiefer show at the Grand Palais, Paris. More here.

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker–”At this point the break became final.” That’s not what’s happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn’t need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don’t even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

-- PEGGY NOONAN

Few of us stood up to Bush when he took us to this disastrous war in Iraq. Few, if any, stood up to him over his foolish support for Rumsfeld, long after it became obvious what a disaster Rumsfeld was. Few, if any, stood up to him over his amassing of power in the executive branch. Few, if any, stood up to him on the spending. Few, if any, stood up to him over the massive prescription drug benefit. Few stood up to him over the political hackery pervading his administration, which became distressingly obvious during Katrina (indeed, there are still Republicans now who insist that the corrupt politicization of the Department of Justice is a non-issue, because these people "serve at the president's pleasure"). Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first time any of us stood up in significant numbers, and with full-throated voice, against the president was over the Harriet Miers debacle. And then we fell silent again, for the most part.

So yes, by all means let's turn our backs on this failed presidency, and save what we can, while we can. But let's not kid ourselves: Bush has failed conservatives, yes, but we have also failed ourselves.

-- RON DREHER

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks of 2001, President Bush sat down to play poker with the biggest stack of chips at the table, the odds-on favorite to win one of the highest-stakes games ever played. This huge initial chip advantage was built from a unified and supportive citizenry at home, a mainstream media that rarely questioned his judgment or intentions, an international community prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, and a military machine bigger than the next couple dozen countries combined. But since those early heady days, Bush and his close advisers and neocon allies have made one horrendous decision after another. The great tragedy, of course, is that the president has not been playing with his own chips. Rather, in this game his poor play has cost the lives of our courageous soldiers and many Iraqi civilians, our country's stature in the world, and our national resources much needed for other purposes, domestic and international.

-- ROY EIDELSON

I've thought for a long time that Americans' obsession with likeability in their Presidents is way overrated. The popular wisdom in 2000 was that George W. Bush was the kind of guy you would like to sit down with over some beer and bbq, whereas Al Gore was a hopeless dweeb, the classic egghead intellectual, the kind of guy everyone loved to hate in high school--thus we ended up with Mr. Average Guy, even though not many average guys have two vacation homes, an Ivy League pedigree, upper-crusty prep school background, etc. etc. In any event, we all know how well we've fared with Mr. Average Guy, who boasts of never reading the papers and basing all his policy decisions on his "gut" or his conviction that Jesus Christ put him in office.

-- BUCKAROOSKIDOO

It should not be a surprise that the Democrats can’t agree on how best to extricate America from the war in Iraq; after all, a party whose leaders still can’t talk coherently about the past can hardly be expected to talk coherently about the future. And the fact is, some of the top Democratic presidential contenders are still having problems explaining how and why they enabled this war in the first place.

Case in point: John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

-- DICK POLMAN

The most productive auto plant in North America is doomed - it's on the list of plants that General Motors is closing as the world's largest automaker slashes capacity in a bid to stem losses.

The annual ranking of auto plant productivity by Harbour Consulting found GM's Oshawa No. 2 plant is the most productive in the North American auto industry.

The Ontario plant, which makes the Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick LaCrosse and Allure, took only 15.68 hours on average to build a vehicle in 2006. That's an improvement from the 16.08 hours it took in 2005, and is better than the 16.34 hours it takes to build a vehicle at the neighboring Oshawa No. 1 GM assembly line.

-- CHRIS ISIDORE

Photograph by Samson Thomas/Gamma