http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7913.shtml

GOP disillusionment with Bush grows

By DOUG THOMPSON

Dec 28, 2005

While die-hard Republicans try to present a unified front in support
of President George W. Bush's evasion of the law and Constitution in
ordering nonstop spying on Americans, splits are showing in the GOP
ranks.

"What's wrong with it is several-fold," former GOP Congressman Bob
Barr says of the domestic spying.

"One, it is bad policy for our government to be spying on American
citizens through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it's bad to
be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly, it's bad
to be spying on Americans apparently in violation of federal laws
against doing it without a court order."

Barr, one of the most conservative members of Congress when he served
in the House, leads an increasing group of disenchanted Republicans
who have had enough of Bush's misuse of the law and encroachment of
civil liberties that are supposed to be protected by the Constitution.

He has joined with fellow conservative firebrand Phyllis Schlafly and
the ultra-liberal American Civil Liberties Union to fight renewal of
many of the rights-robbing provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

And he's not alone.

Republican Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Craig of Idaho and
Olympia Snowe of Maine question Bush's actions along with Pennsylvania
Republican Arlen Specter, chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary
Committee.

"I have grave doubts as to its applicability," says Specter.

"The President's actions raise very fundamental questions about
privacy and the Bill of Rights."

Republican strategists tell me House Speaker Dennis J. Hastert and
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist are fighting to hold GOP dissension
over the President's policies in check but they may not be able to
keep the anger from spilling over into public view.

Frist, hampered by questions over his insider stock sale of Hospital
Corporation of America holdings, couldn't keep GOP anger from helping
derail Bush's push to make the USA Patriot Act a permanent law of the
land.

"The White House is particularly pissed at Frist," says one longtime
GOP consultant.

"They want him out as majority leader and a more hardball leader in
the style of Tom DeLay in his place."

Bush is also angry with Craig, a conservative who joined with
Democrats in a filibuster to defeat permanent renewal of the Patriot
Act.

As a meeting recently, Bush referred to Craig as "a goddamned traitor"
and told the National Republican Senatorial Committee to start
recruiting someone to run against the Idaho Senator in the GOP primary
in 2008.

Such anger against those who dare oppose him is typical for a
President who all too often launches into obscene tirades when his
policies are questioned.

Bush, on many occasions, has called political opponents 'traitors'
and, in private, refers to Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter as
a "lily-livered bastard."

Craig, however, is unfazed by all this and says the Patriot Act
"doesn't do enough to protect the civil liberties of innocent
Americans."

And while Criag, Hagel, Snowe and Specter are willing to speak out
publicly about the illegal actions of a President who is a member of
their own party, other Republicans stick to grumbling in private --
not surprising given the President's reputation for waging wars of
revenge against those who oppose him.

"Bush may be under siege but he is still the President," says
political scientist George Harleigh, who served in the Nixon
Administration.

"He still has the power to reward those who back his policies and
punish those who do not."

Another political scientist, the University of Virginia's Larry
Sabato, says Bush has problems and knows it.

"Things are bad," Sabato says of Bush's situation.

"Really bad."

Sabato says you can tell that Bush knows this because it is "written
all over" Bush's face when he appears in public.

So he has a message for the President.

"The lesson is obvious, Mr. President: You're a lot closer to Nixon
than you are to Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton. And that's not where
you want to be. Nixon's second term ended rather badly, as you will
recall."