"Stay Out Da Bushes!"

I was a Bush-basher when Bush-bashing wasn't cool (see 1992 and 2000), and I agree completely with Peggy Noonan today:

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week,
"I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee]
get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to
change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I
mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against
each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to
prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and
essential cause.