And Sarah Palin is?

I dunno about that; they stopped Quayle as a suspicious character at airport security once, and those were trained security agents making that call.

Palin's a secret commie. You thought she was just looking at the Rodina, hmm?

You know, I don't think it's just the religious right that is adamant about clinging to the One True Republican Faith. Economic Republicans are suddenly rediscovering the virtues of fiscal conservatism, after years of pork barrel spending and profligacy. It's the budget hawks who are, if not exactly justified, then at least based in reality, when they say that their problem was that they did not practice what they preached.

Unfortunately, if the financial crisis has taught them anything, it's that it's all minority homeowners'/Jimmy Carter's/Bill Clinton's fault.

Yeah.

Fiscal conservatism, by itself, isn't dumb. It's a reasonable political approach. It can naturally be applied to the wrong things (scrimping on millions for social programs with a multiplier effect of two or more to one, while spending billions on jets that cost their weight in platinum designed to fight... um, whoever). But it makes sense. It is a sane thing to advocate.

Combine it with a slash and burn approach to the government and an "all taxes must die" mindset, and you have a problem. Cutting taxes is always politically easier than cutting expenses, so whenever politicians are given the opportunity to do one or the other, they'll go for the tax cuts.

So, in other words, they learned nothing.

Meh. Learn or not, they're not positioned to admit personal failure. The GOP is trying like hell to avoid having any more stink on them from the collapse than they already do. Note the current propaganda attacks... If you only halfway pay attention to the news, it sounds like "Everybody's fault, who could have seen this coming?" or "Sorta GWB, but only him, not us, the Real Republicans, but mostly Democrats."

Nah. Maybe they learned something, maybe not, but there's no way to tell; they can't talk openly and honestly about it, so there's no way in hell I'll be voting for a Republican candidate for ANY office that can't discuss the issue of real reforms and lessons learned from this regulatory failure.