Martinsville Weekend

Have a nice group this year.

"Bucky the Plumber", "John the Bassist" and "Junior", the erstwhile moonshiner from Wilkes county, are all going.

We are gearing up. I'm advising John the Bassist to leave the Obama pin at home.

A pretty decent Noonan article

Some more commentary by erstwhile Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan.
The third and fourth paragraphs are particularly right on:

There is now something infantilizing about this election. Mr. Obama continued to claim he will remove wasteful spending by sitting down with the federal budget and going through it "line by line." This is absurd, and he must know it. Mr. McCain continued to vow he will "balance the budget" in the next four years. Who believes that? Does even he?

More than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G's. Hardworkin' families are strainin' and tryin'a get ahead. It's not only Sarah Palin but Mr. McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say "mom and dad": "our moms and dads who are struggling." This is Mr. Bush's former communications adviser Karen Hughes's contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that's too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it's all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads. Do politicians ever remember that in a nation obsessed with politics, our children—sorry, our kids—look to political figures for a model as to how adults sound?

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• DECLARATIONS
• OCTOBER 17, 2008

Palin's Failin'

What is it she stands for? After seven weeks, we don't know.

• By PEGGY NOONAN

"Sometimes the leak is so bad that even a plumber can't fix it." This was the concise summation of a cable political strategist the other day, after the third and final presidential debate. That sounds about right, and yet the race in its final days retains a feeling of dynamism. I think it is going to burst open or tighten, not just mosey along. I can well imagine hearing, the day after Election Day, a lot of "You won't believe it but I was literally in line at the polling station when I decided."

John McCain won the debate, and he did it by making the case more effectively than he has in the past that Barack Obama will raise taxes, when "now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes." He also scored Mr. Obama on his eloquence, using it against him more effectively than Hillary Clinton ever did. When she said he was "just words," it sounded like a bitter complaint. Mr. McCain made it a charge: Young man, you attempt to obscure truth with the mellifluous power of your words. From Mrs. Clinton it sounded jealous, but when Mr. McCain said it, you looked at Mr. Obama and wondered if you'd just heard something that was true. For the first time, Mr. Obama's unruffled demeanor didn't really work for him. His cool made him seem hidden.

There is now something infantilizing about this election. Mr. Obama continued to claim he will remove wasteful spending by sitting down with the federal budget and going through it "line by line." This is absurd, and he must know it. Mr. McCain continued to vow he will "balance the budget" in the next four years. Who believes that? Does even he?

More than ever on the campaign trail, the candidates are dropping their G's. Hardworkin' families are strainin' and tryin'a get ahead. It's not only Sarah Palin but Mr. McCain, too, occasionally Mr. Obama, and, of course, George W. Bush when he darts out like the bird in a cuckoo clock to tell us we are in crisis. All of the candidates say "mom and dad": "our moms and dads who are struggling." This is Mr. Bush's former communications adviser Karen Hughes's contribution to our democratic life, that you cannot speak like an adult in politics now, that's too austere and detached, snobby. No one can say mothers and fathers, it's all now the faux down-home, patronizing—and infantilizing—moms and dads. Do politicians ever remember that in a nation obsessed with politics, our children—sorry, our kids—look to political figures for a model as to how adults sound?

There has never been a second's debate among liberals, to use an old-fashioned word that may yet return to vogue, over Mrs. Palin: She was a dope and unqualified from the start. Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, continue to battle it out: Was her choice a success or a disaster? And if one holds negative views, should one say so? For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion.

Here is a fact of life that is also a fact of politics: You have to hold open the possibility of magic. People can come from nowhere, with modest backgrounds and short résumés, and yet be individuals of real gifts, gifts that had previously been unseen, that had been gleaming quietly under a bushel, and are suddenly revealed. Mrs. Palin came, essentially, from nowhere. But there was a man who came from nowhere, the seeming tool of a political machine, a tidy, narrow, unsophisticated senator appointed to high office and then thrust into power by a careless Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose vanity told him he would live forever. And yet that limited little man was Harry S. Truman. Of the Marshall Plan, of containment. Little Harry was big. He had magic. You have to give people time to show what they have. Because maybe they have magic too.

But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.

But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.

Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.

No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.

In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.

I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.

At any rate, come and get me, copper.

Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

Scotch tasting, take two

Dow Declines 733;
S&P Tumbles 9%

The Dow slumped to below 8600 amid an across-the-board drop following grim economic data and a mixed round of earnings reports. Oil futures dropped to around $75 a barrel.

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Well, not a particularly good evening to enjoy a tasting of premium scotches and feel good about it. So, I selected Johnnie Walker Black Label, the cheapest on the menu and enjoyed three of 'em.

So there!

Scotch tasting

Early on last week, I was increasingly craving a series of scotches as the financial markets continued to hemorrhage...day after day after day. Alas, I was unable to indulge due to work demands that kept me at my office 12-14 hours each day.

HOWEVER, I read the following article, pasted below, in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend and thought to myself, the subject matter might warrant further investigation.

I enjoy scotch. I have some favorites but usually if I'm drinking out, I order Johnnie Walker Black Label. The Village Tavern's house scotch is Famous Grouse, which is perfectly acceptable to me and, at $6.25 vs. $12 or $14, I'm glad to order it. Otherwise, I stay away from the well liquors, which in many cases are simply the cheapest liquors available.

Which brings us to the point of this article....good cheap liquor. The column says:

GOOD/VERY GOOD

Teacher's Highland Cream $16.99
Robust, chewy malt taste gives this whisky ballast. Above deck, the Scotch gets dressed in the elegantly restrained smokiness of the lightly peated Ardmore single malt.

Ballantine's Finest $13.99
A rich, rounded, malty sweetness balanced by dry herbal notes.

So, I go by the liquor store tonight and buy a 750ml bottle of the Ballantine's for $13.95 and a 1.75 liter bottle of the Teacher's for $23.95. I bought the big bottle of Teachers because that's all they had. There were lots of 750ml bottles of single malts and what not, but not of the this stuff. I asked the clerk about 750 size bottles and he opined that people who buy Teacher's like to buy in quantity. Hmmm.

My thoughts: Not bad, so far. I can drink the stuff, but really prefer, for a lower end blend, Famous Grouse which retails for about $20 for a 750. Johnnie Walker Black goes for about $32 for a 750 and is quite satisfying. When I want a treat, I'll go for the Laphroig 10 year which is about $50 for a 750.

While trying the two bargain blends tonight, I also poured a taste of Macallan 12 year as a reference point. The Macallan was, predictably, more intense with a cleaner finish.

I'm going to try these two blends some more over the next week or two. Sometimes it takes me a bit to settle in on an opinion for wine and scotch, so maybe I'll decide I like one or the other more than on my initial impression.




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• HOW'S YOUR DRINK
• OCTOBER 11, 2008

What to Down in a Down Market

By ERIC FELTEN

Next week, a new offering of 40-year-old Highland Park single-malt Scotch is slated to roll out in Manhattan -- perhaps not the most auspicious time to bring a $2,000-a-bottle whisky to the market. My guess is that there will soon be a premium on spirits without premium prices. Which makes now a good time to sample the standard brands of blended Scotch whisky to see which are good bets for the austere days to come.

Dylan Cross for The Wall Street Journal

I picked up bottles from among the most famous of Scotch brands, including such blends as Johnnie Walker Red Label (the most popular Scotch in the world), Dewar's White Label, and J&B Rare. I also picked up such venerable -- but no longer fashionable -- brands as Black & White, Ballantine's Finest and White Horse. Prices ranged from $12.99 to just over the $20 mark.

These whiskies are a deal, not only compared with single malts, but in relation to the historical cost of blended whisky: Back in 1938 a liquor price war broke out, with retailers slashing what they charged for Scotch. In New York, the price of Black & White fell to $2.29 from $3.29. In today's dollars that discount price would work out to about $35. But I was able to buy a bottle of Black & White for $14.99. Maybe times aren't so bad after all.

But are the whiskies worth drinking? Yes and not really. Let's start with the not-reallys. I've never been much of a fan of Johnnie Walker's Red Label (as opposed to the much tastier Black Label variety), and in my blind tasting I found no reason to change my opinion. In the movie "Mister Roberts," William Powell concocts an imitation of Red Label for Jack Lemmon to use a-wooing. Powell makes the ersatz Scotch out of plain alcohol, cola for color and iodine and hair tonic for taste. You could do worse in describing a sip of Red Label (in fact I did -- writing "burned rubber shoe" on my tasting sheet).

I wasn't too enamored of Dewar's either, a whisky that, in striving for complexity, ends up an inharmonious muddle of flavors. Cutty Sark was watery; The Famous Grouse was blandish; plain sweetness and alcohol burn contested for primacy in Grant's; Black & White was just blah.

Sampling Whiskies

GOOD/VERY GOOD

Teacher's Highland Cream $16.99
Robust, chewy malt taste gives this whisky ballast. Above deck, the Scotch gets dressed in the elegantly restrained smokiness of the lightly peated Ardmore single malt.

Ballantine's Finest $13.99
A rich, rounded, malty sweetness balanced by dry herbal notes.

GOOD

J&B Rare $18.99
A grassy-green young whisky in which you can taste the light and flowery Knockando single malt, one of its constituent parts.

White Horse $12.99
A soft whisky with hints of vanilla, cinnamon, and caramel.

Better was White Horse, a soft whisky with hints of vanilla and cinnamon. I also liked J&B, a green and grassy whisky in which you can taste the light and flowery Knockando single malt that is one of its constituent parts. But my two favorites were Ballantine's and Teacher's. Ballantine's has a rich, rounded, malty sweetness balanced by dry herbal notes. Teacher's has a robust, chewy malt taste as ballast and, above deck, the restrained smokiness of the peaty Ardmore single malt.

Teacher's is a brand that has always been around, but which I had never bothered to try. It has become incredibly popular in some big Scotch-drinking markets, such as India and Brazil, but the brand has been allowed to atrophy in the U.S.

It was once heavily advertised, with slogans worthy of Mr. Blandings. By the 1970s, Jerry Della Femina had the account, and the ads were decidedly more quirky. He hired a slew of comedians to pen comic testimonials to the whisky, among them Mel Brooks and Redd Foxx. Groucho Marx shilled for Teacher's in a rollicking advertorial that ran in Playboy and Esquire in 1973: "Whenever I think of Scotch, I recall the Immortal Words of My Brother Harpo."

Groucho's story went that he woke up one morning to find that his liquor cabinet had been robbed. Someone had taken a sample of every Scotch on the shelf, "Except in the case of Teacher's Scotch where the case was taken." Groucho suspected Harpo, at whose house, "there, big as life, were my bottles of Teacher's." Harpo honked that "Teacher's tasted better to him than any of the other scotches I had."

The funny thing is that, in real life, not only did Harpo dislike Scotch, but he hated spirits of every sort. The mere prospect of having to take a gulp of liquor was enough to make him throw up. "There was something wrong with my chemistry," he wrote in his autobiography "Harpo Speaks!" A friend had joked that Harpo couldn't even serve alcohol -- if he opened a fresh bottle of rare old Scotch and started to pour, "by the time the liquor got in the glass the drink would be ruined."

Harpo and liquor may have been a bad mix, but not nearly as disastrous a combination as alcohol and Jack Kerouac. The Beat poet and novelist drank himself to death less than a year after making a boozy fool of himself on an infamous episode of William F. Buckley Jr.'s "Firing Line." A month after the riots at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, Buckley assembled a panel to discuss "The Hippies." Among the guests was a spectacularly drunk Kerouac, who drifted off when not blurting non sequiturs -- at one point Kerouac shouted, apropos of nothing, "Flat-faced floogee with the floy, floy!" Buckley was kind enough not to point out that the actual lyric to the swing-era tune begins "Flat foot," but he did turn to the audience and crack, "Give that man a drink."

But of course, Kerouac had a drink. He had been slurping whisky all the while from a coffee mug at his side, and according to biographer Dennis McNally that mug had been filled with what was left of a bottle of Teacher's Highland Cream that Kerouac had started in the green room.

You can't blame the Teacher's folks for leaving Kerouac out of their ad campaigns. Though they did enlist the help of another drinker of some renown, Fats Domino. His "Domino Theory of Drinking" went: "Once you down a Teacher's Scotch, a second one will soon follow in its place. And maybe a third. Sometimes even a Fifth."

Best not to so over-consume, notwithstanding the anxieties of the moment. And best not to get overstretched buying expensive liquor. That is, unless I can get the Highland Park 40 with an I.O.U. and persuade Henry Paulson to pay off the scrap of lousy paper for me.

Mr. Felten is the author of "How's Your Drink?: Cocktails, Culture and the Art of Drinking Well" (Agate Surrey)

Gracie & Molly

It's 100% coincidental, but I once dated a girl from Louisiana named Molly and once knew
(stopped short of dating) a stripper from the Cheetah III named Gracie. Gracie's stage name was Monique and as she explained to me, "who ever heard of a dancer named Grace?"

Noonan on Palin, "Palin the Populist"

Peggy spins the debate and takes an opportunity to skewer GWB's squandered final years,

"We have never seen an economic meltdown like this? We've never seen a presidential meltdown like this. George W. Bush's weakness is not all lame-duckship. In the last year of his presidency Ronald Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow and helped change the world. In the penultimate year of his presidency, Bill Clinton sent U.S. troops, successfully, into Kosovo.

After the first bailout failed, Mr. Bush spoke like a man who was a mere commentator, not the leader in a crisis."

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• DECLARATIONS
• OCTOBER 3, 2008

Palin the Populist

Joe Biden was no match for "Joe Six-Pack."

• By PEGGY NOONAN

She killed. She had him at "Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?" She was the star. He was the second male lead, the good-natured best friend of the leading man. She was not petrified but peppy.

The whole debate was about Sarah Palin. She is not a person of thought but of action. Interviews are about thinking, about reflecting, marshaling data and integrating it into an answer. Debates are more active, more propelled—they are thrust and parry. They are for campaigners. She is a campaigner. Her syntax did not hold, but her magnetism did. At one point she literally winked at the nation.

As far as Mrs. Palin was concerned, Gwen Ifill was not there, and Joe Biden was not there. Sarah and the camera were there. This was classic "talk over the heads of the media straight to the people," and it is a long time since I've seen it done so well, though so transparently. There were moments when she seemed to be doing an infomercial pitch for charm in politics. But it was an effective infomercial.

Joe Biden seems to have walked in thinking that she was an idiot and that he only had to patiently wait for this fact to reveal itself. This was a miscalculation. He showed great forbearance. Too much forbearance. She said of his intentions on Iraq, "Your plan is a white flag of surrender." This deserved an indignant response, or at least a small bop on the head, from Mr. Biden, who has been for five years righter on Iraq than the Republican administration. He was instead mild.

The heart of her message was a complete populist pitch. "Joe Six-Pack" and "soccer moms" should unite to fight the tormentors who forced mortgages on us. She spoke of "Main Streeters like me." A question is at what point shiny, happy populism becomes cheerful manipulation.

Sarah Palin saved John McCain again Thursday night. She is the political equivalent of cardiac paddles: Clear! Zap! We've got a beat! She will re-electrify the base. More than that, an hour and a half of talking to America will take her to a new level of stardom. Watch her crowds this weekend. She's about to get jumpers, the old political name for people who are so excited to see you they start to jump.

Her triumph comes at an interesting time. The failure of the first bailout bill was an epic repudiation of the Washington leadership class by the American people. Two weeks ago the president of the United States, the speaker of the House, the secretary of the Treasury and the leadership of both parties in Congress came forward and announced that the economy was in crisis and a federal bill to solve it urgently needed. The powers were in agreement, the stars aligned, it was going to happen.

And then the phones began to ring, from one end of Capitol Hill to the other. And the message in those calls was, essentially: We don't trust you to fix the problem, we suspect you may have caused it. Go away.

It was an epic snub, aimed at both parties. And the bill tanked.

We have simply, as a nation, never had a moment like this, in which the American people voted such a stunning no-confidence in America's leaders in a time of real and present danger. The fate of the second bill is unclear as I write, but the fact that it has morphed from three pages to roughly 450, and is festooned with favors, will do nothing to allay public suspicions about the trustworthiness of Congress. This, as a background, could not have helped Mr. Biden.

We have never seen an economic meltdown like this? We've never seen a presidential meltdown like this. George W. Bush's weakness is not all lame-duckship. In the last year of his presidency Ronald Reagan met with Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow and helped change the world. In the penultimate year of his presidency, Bill Clinton sent U.S. troops, successfully, into Kosovo.

After the first bailout failed, Mr. Bush spoke like a man who was a mere commentator, not the leader in a crisis.

We witness here a great political lesson. When you are president, it matters—it really matters—that a majority of the people support and respect you. When you squander that affection, you lose more than mere popularity. You lose the ability to lead when your country is in crisis. This is a terrible loss, and a dangerous one, for the whole world is watching.

Young aides to Reagan used to grouse, late in his second term, that he had high popularity levels, that popularity was capital, and that he should spend it more freely on potential breakthroughs of this kind or that. But Reagan and the men around him were wiser. They spent when they had to and were otherwise prudent. (Is there a larger lesson here?) They were not daring when they didn't have to be. They knew presidential popularity is a jewel to be protected, and to be burnished when possible, because without it you can do nothing. Without the support and trust of the people you cannot move, cannot command. You are left, like Mr. Bush, talking to an empty room.

We saw this week, too, a turn in the McCain campaign's response to criticisms of Mrs. Palin. I find obnoxious the political game in which if you expressed doubts about the vice presidential nominee, or criticized her, you were treated as if you were knocking the real America—small towns, sound values. "It's time that normal Joe Six-Pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency," Mrs. Palin told talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. This left me trying to imagine Abe Lincoln saying he represents "backwoods types," or FDR announcing that the fading New York aristocracy deserves another moment in the sun. I'm not sure the McCain campaign is aware of it—it's possible they are—but this is subtly divisive. As for the dismissal of conservative critics of Mrs. Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party types" (that was Mr. McCain), well, my goodness. That is the authentic sound of the aggression, and phony populism, of the Bush White House. Good move. That ended well.

We must take happiness where we can. Tina Fey's Sarah Palin has become, in that old phrase, a national sensation, and Ms. Fey is becoming, with her show "30 Rock," and now the Palin impression, one of the great comic figures of her generation. Her work with Amy Poehler (as Katie Couric) in last weekend's spoof on "Saturday Night Live" was so astoundingly good—the hand gestures, the vocal tone and spirit—that it captured some of the actual heart of the Palin story. Ms. Poehler as Couric: "Mrs. Palin, are you aware that when cornered you become increasingly adorable?" Ms. Fey as Palin mugs, adorably.

To spoof someone well takes talent, but to utterly nail a political figure while not brutalizing him takes a real gift, and amounts almost to a public service. After all, to capture someone is a kind of tribute: it concedes he is real, vivid, worthy of note. We are not as a nation manufacturing trust all that well, or competence, or leadership. But some things we do well, and one is comedy. Ms. Fey plays characters who are sour, stressed and who, on "30 Rock," live in a world that is cynical, provisional and shallow. But to observe life so closely takes a kind of love.

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Lexington on Bush.

The Lexington Column in this week's Economist pretty much hits the nail on the head, in my opinion.
GWB's presidency has been a hemorrhaging abortion, an absolute screw-up.


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Lexington

Reaping the whirlwind

Oct 2nd 2008
From The Economist print edition

George Bush’s presidency is ending in disaster

Illustration by KAL

PLENTY of people can be blamed for the calamity on Capitol Hill on September 29th. Two-hundred and twenty-eight congressmen decided they were ready to risk another Great Depression. Nancy Pelosi made an idiotic speech damning the Republicans. Sheriff McCain claimed that he was going to ride into town to sort out the mess—and promptly fell off his horse. But there is no doubt where the lion’s share of the blame belongs: with George Bush. The dismal handling of the financial crisis over the past fortnight is not only a comment on Mr Bush’s personal shortcomings as a leader. It is a comment on the failure of his leadership style over the past eight years.

The convenient excuse for Mr Bush’s performance is that he is at the fag-end of his presidency. Public attention has shifted to the presidential candidates, and the members of the House face the electorate in a month. But this rings hollow: there is nothing about the political cycle that dictates that an outgoing president should have an approval rating of 27% and an army of enemies on Capitol Hill. Bill Clinton ended his two terms with ratings of close to 70%.

The crisis underlined Mr Bush’s two biggest personal weaknesses—his leaden tongue and his indecisiveness. He failed to explain in simple language that a crisis on Wall Street also means a crisis on Main Street. The self-styled decider was also singularly lacking in decisiveness. He handed responsibility for the bail-out to a technocrat, his treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, but then failed to provide him with the necessary political backup. He started lobbying legislators only days before the vote. He failed to travel to Capitol Hill to make a personal appeal to Congress. Worse still, he wasted political capital on a farcical photo-op meeting in the White House with the presidential candidates. Mr Clinton would have done things a lot better.

Catastrophe will probably be averted, at least for now. As The Economist went to press, it looked as if the rescue package would pass through the House of Representatives, perhaps as early as October 3rd: it was approved by the Senate on October 1st. But this was less thanks to the Bush administration than to the fact that a run on the markets has put the fear of God into legislators. Moreover, the collapse of the rescue package was part of a wider pattern of failure: almost everything that the Bush administration has attempted since 2004, most notably Social Security reform and immigration reform, has ended in failure.

This succession of failures is a verdict on Mr Bush’s leadership style. The Bush administration has been defined by two things—ruthless partisanship and an iron commitment to presidential power. In his first term Mr Bush pushed through a conservative agenda of huge tax cuts and a war against Iraq despite the fact that he had the narrowest of mandates. In his re-election bid in 2004 he relied on supercharging the conservative base rather than reaching out to middle-of-the-road voters.

The Bush administration also treated Congress with something approaching contempt. Mr Bush liked to think of himself as a CEO at the head of a government machine rather than as a politician in a town of politicians. The first directive that his vice-president, Dick Cheney, gave to his chief counsel, David Addington, was to “restore the powers of the presidency”. This contempt was unconcealed when it came to the Democrats (Joe Lieberman excepted): Mr Cheney even told Vermont’s Patrick Leahy to “go fuck yourself” on the Senate floor. But it extended to fellow Republicans. The White House nonchalantly undermined one Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, because it thought that it could replace him with a more pliable one, Bill Frist. It failed to keep Congress informed about important decisions, particularly on the “war on terror”, let alone involved in decision-making.

The Bush legacy

This my-way-or-the-highway partisanship destroyed Mr Bush’s ability to push through entitlement reforms. Why should the Democrats take the risk of helping to change the system when Mr Bush was likely to take all the credit for success? It also destroyed his ability to win enough Democratic support for one of the most important bipartisan measures he championed, immigration reform. On September 29th Mr Bush saw his rescue package torn apart by two groups of people who have been enraged by his political style—left-wing Democrats (who regard him as the spawn of Satan) and right-wing market fundamentalists. He also saw Congress relishing the chance to humble the imperial presidency. “This is a democracy,” remarked North Dakota’s Kent Conrad. “This isn’t a dictatorship.”

Mr Bush also paid the price for the defining cause of his presidency, the invasion of Iraq, an initiative which destroyed the bipartisan unity created by September 11th, 2001. The most stinging complaint against the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act of 2008 was that it bore an uneasy resemblance to the Iraq War Resolution of 2002. There was the same bid for untrammelled authority (Mr Paulson’s initial request for $700 billion was a mere three pages; Congress has expanded it to 450 pages); the same alarmist rhetoric (“our entire economy is in danger”); and the same insistence that Congress should act immediately. Sceptics battered the president with complaints about crying wolf.

The most damning verdict on Mr Bush this week came not from the Democrats but from the 133 Republicans who decided to vote against a Republican administration. Mr Bush devoted much of his energy as president to forging a lasting Republican majority. But over the past four years conservatives have turned against him on everything from immigration reform to financial management. Far from creating a hegemonic party, Mr Bush leaves the Republicans in the worst state they have been in for decades; riven by divisions, confused about their identity and facing Armageddon at the ballot box.