GOP Field So Bad That Bush Looks Good

The latest GOP presidential debate gave EJ Dionne Jr. “an experience I never, ever expected,” he writes in the Washington Post: “I had a moment of nostalgia for George W. Bush.” Sure, Bush got us into two wars and exploded the deficit with tax cuts for the rich. “Yet compared with the New Hampshire Seven—and with today’s Republican majority in the House of Representatives—Bush was the reincarnation of Theodore Roosevelt.”

Bush at least tried to put the government to work with programs like No Child Left Behind or the Medicare drug benefit, whereas this year’s would-be candidates didn’t offer a single idea besides slashing taxes, regulation, and spending. The GOP has moved so far right that Michele Bachmann passes for mainstream—“and that ought to petrify more reasonable Republicans.” Of course, you can probably blame Bush for that. The “budget disaster he stuck us with” helped “unleash the Tea Party furies.” (More George W. Bush stories.)