"The problem for the Bushies is that for the time being reality has intruded.  The war is going poorly.  Rove's cultural war has opened divisions within the party and with the general public."

LBJ was widely believed to be creating a permanent Democratic majority with the '64 elections.  And then, reality intruded...

extremism in the pursuit of power is no vice.

What strikes me is the success of the theme song of the Bushies that the Democrats are obstructionists.  What can Dems obstruct?  Outside of threats of filibusters and a few actual filibusters, the Dems can't do anything.  None of their legislation gets out of committee.  The Dems often can't even have a say in the committee meetings, because the Republicans shut down the discussion before Democrats get to speak.  The Republicans hold all the power.  If they can't get their programs going, they have no one to blame but themselves.  But the Republicans are masters of the blame game; somehow they blame the Dems for all that doesn't get through the processes in Congress, and lots of folks swallow their BS.

Rove is no idealogue; he wants power, and he will do anything to retain it.  Read Chapter 18 of Rove's bible, The Prince, by Machiavelli, and you will see what's behind his operation.

It seems to me that the problem is, in some respects, the American people. We should be wary of shifting the blame away from the current administration.
The problem with the American people, from my view, is that most Americans don't <i>care</i>. If I'm right, the 'norms' you're referring to aren't the problem. The American people are ambivalent, and therefore apply their normative morality selectively. They don't want their kids to torture people, but the actions of government are too far away from normal Americans. Americans go to work, get paid, and send their kids to school. How many Americans do you honestly think spend their day citing blogs, reading non-fiction, celebrating the arrival of <i>The New Republic</i> or <i>Economist</i>, or combing the newspaper?
Not very many. That's the problem.
As an aside: and of those who do, who among them can feel comfortably unskeptical of what they end up reading anyway?

LBJ's majority was killed by The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  That put us on the road to George Bush. Nothing that Bush has done threatens the hegemony of intolerance and un-reason. I wish I could feel more hopeful, but I can't.

I second the comments about public apathy: I never thought it would be possible for so many appalling things to have no discernible consequences.

That said, I also think the Bush administration is different, though I don't know about unique. I believe that they know no restraints of honor or of conscience. I'm sure somehow they think their motives are pure and their ends are noble, or something, but they seem to me to be willing to do literally anything in pursuit of those means. Lie to the people; lie to Congress; subvert the constitution, whatever. I think they have, literally, no shame at all.

(I mean: even Reagan really did raise taxes once it became clear that the deficits were going up too fast. There were some things he would not do. I am not sure there's anything this administration would not do.)

I also think that they are unusually reluctant to ask themselves seriously whether what they're doing is right. Think about the lack of planning for the aftermath of the fall of Saddam. It's not hard to see that you ought to plan not just for your best-case scenario, but for others. It's not hard to see that barring the person who has been in charge of planning at State from the meetings in which you plan is grade-school stuff that you just shouldn't indulge in when the stakes are high. But they didn't do it. Why? I guess they just assume they're right all the time, and the usual cautions just don't apply.

I put this down to a combination of: a President who has never had to face the very real prospect of failure, and thus has never had to force himself to wonder whether his first take on things was wrong, surrounded by people who really seem to have drunk the neocon Kool-Aid. (And some others, like Powell, whom Bush never seems to have gotten along with or taken seriously.)

An administration that always assumes it's right, has no sense of caution or responsibility, and is willing to do more or less anything in pursuit of its goals is, if not unique, still extremely unusual, and frightening.

I don't think Bush knows what a conservative is on a fundamental level, or much cares. Bush strikes me as kind of an average guy who likes to follow more than lead. He follows his Christian values + advice from Karl on social policy questions, follows his upbringing as a businessman and the Repub business lobby on tax and deregulation, follows the advice of hawks and neocons on foreign policy.

Karl, of course, synthesizes and brings in the views of the various "movements"  and lobbies for Bush's consideration, all his information is provided by trusted sources and any contrary ideas or suggestions kept away. To determine the "nature" of the Bush administration it's necessary to examine the inner circle of this impressionable president.

Once you have untethered yourself from principle, there is little to keep you from engaging in base acts of self-interest.

Once upon a time, there were conservative thinkers in this country who were worthy of respect. Their solutions to the problems of governing were not ones I necessarily agreed with, but there were some underlying principles that they collectively worked from. When I was younger, I used to read through old copies of The National Review my father used to keep around (now he has moved on to the intolerable Washington Times). I didn't agree with their ideas, but I would often find concepts and ideas I hand't thought of before.

This new conservatism bears little semblance to the old. The new adherents offer something to everyone in order to cement just enough support to squeak into positions of power, an act made easier by leaving behind bulky principles.

To add to the ignomious collapse of conservatism as an intellectual movement, the once stoic defenders of the faith such as The National Review have given the whole circus a pass.

I think the Bushists tend to concentrate power in the hands of a few Inner Circle members because they don't have the skills to govern properly.  There's no deal making or consensus building, it's "Do what we want or we will use State power to crush you."  They don't have the skills or talent to govern any other way.  They sure don't have the smarts.

<i>Don't underestimate the amount that uneasiness about the mess in Vietnam and about social extremism helped the Republicans in '66 and '68.</i>

The people who voted for LBJ and who opposed the war were the ones who forced him from office. The war in Vietnam was supported by the Right.

The civil rights legislation led to Nixon's Southern Strategy and the defection of segregationists to the Republicans. Reagan cemented that with his States Rights speech in Philadelphia, Miss at the beginning of his 1980 campaign. Since then, its been same old, same old.

 
What exactly is going to change that?

Just to be clear, Petey, you're hoping we run our very own Richard Nixon in '08?  Let me guess, you supported Lieberman.  Maybe Biden in '08?

I think 1964 was a pivotal year. The Democrats huge victory in 1964 and then again in 1974 led to their undoing. 
Their freakisly large congressional majorities allowed legislation to pass that was far ahead of where the country was.  Although what they did, particularly in the civil rights area, was absolutely correct, in fact, damn near noble, by getting ahead of the country they alienated one hell of a lot people that had previously voted Democratic based on economic concerns.  This allowed the Republicans to cynically appeal to the  'Reagan Democrats' in 1980 and thereafter. This maladministration is the bitter fruit of this continuing trend of people voting on the basis of perceived threats to their culture as opposed to their economic interests. 
To keep people voting against their own economic self-interest requires each successive GOP administration to be more shrill. Hopefully, at some point, perhaps it is occurring now, the message will become so shrill that a clear majority of the people will see through it.

"The people who voted for LBJ and who opposed the war were the ones who forced him from office. The war in Vietnam was supported by the Right."

An unease over social extremism and war fatigue played a major part in in moving middle and lower income Dems away from the Party.  These were folks who were not part of the anti-war movement, but were still discomfited by the way the war was going.

The shifting allegiance of these folks, along with the loss of the out and out racist vote, was what led to the big Republican gains in '66 and '68.

And now we see another era with unease over social extremism and war fatigue...

-----

There is no doubt that Civil Rights played an enormous part in eroding the Democratic majority after the '64 elections.  No doubt whatsoever.

But I think you are missing some of the other important factors in play at the time.  And those other factors have some striking parallels with the scene today.

"<span class="Apple-style-span">What's worrisome about now is the ease with which we accept actions that I'd have previously thought would have the country up in arms."</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">I'd like to agree with your sentiment but a couple of years ago I came across an article the cited a Gallup poll taken in the week after the Kent State Murders. It said that 58% of those responding thought the students were to blame.</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">Blew my mind.</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">And I started to think that I had been particularly susceptible to the "America" propaganda as a child. </span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">You know, that it could never happen here.</span&gt

i What exactly is going to change that?

I think it was Joe Klein who had an interesting perspective in Time a couple of weeks ago on the possibility of a populist challenge in either or both parties.  Immigration.  Globalization.  The middle-class eventually figuring out that the anti-tax folks are benefiting the wealthiest at the expense of the average people trying to send their kids to college.  The backlash against the Iraq War may take a different form than did the backlash against Vietnam. 

You think this is bad, you should see what they got away with in WWII, when they rounded up and imprisoned tens of thousands of citizens of Japanese descent, even though there was no particular reason to suspect them except for their race. 

I believe it was Grover Norquist who equated bipartisanship with date rape?  That pretty much says it all.