For years, I've been the voice of conservatives in my world. I was in the campus Republicans at Michigan State (both undergrad and law school). I attended all of the GOP fundraisers I could. I advocated and defended every Republican position, and even individual Republicans themselves when they mis-stepped. (Yes, I even apologized for Newt Gingrich; he is only a human being, after all, and he did manage to accomplish quite a bit before he got himself in trouble with his own family.) But for the last four or five years, I've found it very, very difficult to be proud of my Republican roots.

Quite frankly, it's embarrassing to be a Republican these days.

It all started after George W. Bush was elected in 2000. Like all of my other Republican friends, I was outright giddy. I actually danced a jig (of sorts) at the campus Republicans election party. And I was honestly disgusted with the people who refused to stand behind the president after September 11, 2001. They were, I said, anti-American for being critical of our Commander in Chief in a moment of international crisis. When he announced that Iraq was a terrorist threat, I was on the bandwagon: we had to get these people who, Bush led me to believe, had been behind September 11.


I have always been friends with people across the political spectrum. One of the things I've enjoyed most in my life is having respectful discussions of political issues with people who disagree with me. I respect people who can take a position and defend it without getting personal or disrespectful, and I really like people who I respect. It's for this reason that I started hearing warnings from my more liberal friends: Iraq had nothing to do with September 11, Bush was after the oil, he was lying to Americans, he was using September 11 as an excuse to push a completely unrelated agenda. I didn't buy any of it; it was so much background noise from people who would criticize Bush if he found a cure for cancer. Or so I thought.

But as the Bush administration started trying more and more to fan the flames of war, my resolution to support this president started to crumble. He seemed to be clutching at straws, and when the straws weren't enough, he started making it up as he went...flagrantly. This great story about a rogue state having nuclear weapons (later downgraded to "weapons of mass destruction" and then to "the intent to have weapons of mass destruction" and then to "having once intended to have weapons of mass destruction") started to unravel: the IAEA inspectors couldn't find anything to support these contentions, experts on Iraq all agreed that the story just didn't make sense, and then it turned out that a key piece of evidence, the infamous "Niger papers", were forgeries, and not even very good ones.

Ah, yes, the Niger papers. I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back. The moment that I discovered Bob Novak had outed Joe Wilson's wife from her undercover job as a CIA agent citing those famous "high level" sources, I knew that my Democrat friends were right: George W. Bush and his friends were the most cynical, manipulative, sleaziest bunch to ever wield power. From that moment on, I have been literally disgusted with this arrogant, hypocritical excuse for a Republican. So much so that for the first time in my life, I voted for a Democrat for president in 2004. I had to hold my nose, but I did it because I felt I had to.

Well, I was a little ahead of the rest of the country, which re-elected him in a euphoria of happy war feelings. But now everyone else is catching up. People are tired of seeing the bodies come back. They are tired of hearing about troops being told time and time and time again that their "six month" tours of duty would now be "one year" and then "two years" and then "indefinite." They are starting to actually question the reasons behind this war. They are starting to realize that Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism or weapons of mass destruction or anything else. His approval rating has fallen into the 40s and continues to plummet. As more and more examples of his incompetence, foolishness, arrogance, and hubris continue to surface with everything from Karl Rove's outing Valerie Plame to filling critical federal positions with literal dog-and-pony show cronies, more people are going to start to realize that this George W. Bush is not so much a Republican as he is a plunderer and wannabe emperor.

He knows it, too, which I think is the reason he gave his pathetic little speech this morning. It was billed as a "major policy address", but it offered nothing more than more empty platitudes and cheerleading. The message: "We're facing a radical ideology with an unalterable objective, to enslave whole nations and intimidate the whole world." I was actually astounded when he said this, because I thought it was amazingly candid. Then I realized that he was talking about terrorist and not his own administration.

Seriously, what was "major" about this speech except that it gave him a chance to try to whip up the war fury? And is it coincidence that on the same day, a major terrorist threat against the New York subways was announced? In the past, I would have called such speculation "paranoid conspiracy talk," but these days I put far more stock in it. Every time the president's political fortunes seem to falter, one of these major terrorist threats emerges. It's past the point of comedy. It's just pathetic.

So, I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. I feel like I have to explain myself these days any time someone finds out I'm a Republican. And I don't want that. I don't want that at all.

Anyone know the number of a good support group?