Buchanan

This is a point the blue-balled, Bush loving, SCLM would do well to keep in mind as they ponder what happened to the Rove designed Great Republican Majority.

Indeed, since 9/11, the party has indulged in a willful self-delusion that it has become America’s Party. The Bush triumph in 2004, talking heads brayed, settled the matter: Red State America has triumphed over Blue State America. The future belongs to us.This was always hyperbole. Where Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan rolled up 49-state landslides in re-election runs, Bush won 31 states, losing every state north of the Potomac and east of Ohio, two of the three great industrial states of the Midwest, Michigan and Illinois, and he was skunked on the Pacific rim. Had Kerry hammered him on trade and lost jobs in Ohio, Bush would be a one-term president.

The rest of Buchanan's argument naturally distorts and twists other key facets of American politics. But, it's central thrust - that Bush is a failure and that there was nothing about his reelection that somehow gauranteed Republican dominance forever - is one I agree with and the Halperins of the world seem to ignore.