Today, Republicans scream that no one can even question AWOL Bush and his lousy policies. During WWII, Thomas Dewey of "Dewey beats Truman!" fame led a Republican effort to impeach FDR at the height of the war, blaming him for the shameful Republican policies which kept us weak. Did right wingers call Dewey a traitor for undermining a war time President? Of course not. They nominated him for President as soon as they could. Truman beat Dewey.

Republicans couldn't accept that and began attacking Truman and his administration - undermining our security. They refused to let Truman do his job, even though he was protecting America and the free world. Truman integrated the armed forces and took other bold steps over strong right wing objection which ended up keeping us strong. Then-Dixiecrats like Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party, and their fellow right wing racists in the Republican Party embraced them with open arms.

Other than racists, the Republicans embraced and empowered radicals and lunatics who undermined America. The most famous is Joseph McCarthy who lied to the public and led witch hunts against the military and the Truman Administration, even attacking Republicans like General Marshall (of Marshall Plan fame) who Truman tapped to help keep us safe.

Richard M. Nixon was among the top Republicans involved in this shameful effort to put personal and partisan ambition over national security. He built his career hounding sensible Republicans and Democrats as "pinkos" and "soft on communism." Even during the bitter Korean War, these Republicans undermined our national security.

Did the Republicans demand Nixon, McCarthy and other Republican red-baiting opportunists stop? Did they require them to support the President in time of crisis? Of course not. They rewarded Nixon for undermining our top officials and our national security in time of war. Nixon was increasing the risk to our forces fighting in Asia and rather than reign him in, the Republicans put him on their national ticket five times in six elections! They nominated him for Vice President twice (52, 56) and President three times (60, 68, 72)!

Some Republicans complain that Democrats disrespected Ike, but that's revisionism. The Republican rank and file wanted Taft, the man who tried to help Hitler by holding back FDR's efforts to rearm America and aid the allies as their nominee in 52 and 56. The Republicans, not the Democrats questioned General Eisenhower's patriotism and intellect at the time.

To many Republicans, Ike was not one of them. They accused him of selling out their party to "the Eastern Establishment." Tracts like "A Choice not an Echo" by Phyllis Schlafly accused the Eisenhower Republicans of stealing the nomination from the same Robert Taft who tried to prevent us from fighting the Nazis. Leading Republican writers like William F. Buckley actually accused Ike of wittingly or unwittingly serving the cause of international communism!

Dennis Goldford (the Chairman of the Department of Politics and International Relations at Drake University) wrote at TomPaine.com: "At that time 'Mr. Republican,' the candidate of the more conservative, anti-New Deal element of the party was Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. Though his supporters thought that he had the nomination all sewn up, the 'Eastern Establishment' in their view stole the nomination from Taft and gave it to Dwight Eisenhower. Books such as Phyllis Schlafly's A Choice, Not An Echo accused moderate and liberal Republicans of betraying them, a narrative which presaged the Goldwater insurgency, the movement of the center of gravity of the Republican Party from the Northeast to the South and the Mountain West, and ultimately the Reagan presidency." See George W.'s Magical Money Machine The Republican Party Rediscovers Its Wall Street Past: http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/2491.

Here's the lesson of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s: the Republicans demonstrated their eagerness to attack and undermine our leaders and help our enemies. Leading up to World War II, Republicans fought FDR to keep us as weak as possible. Even their "moderates" like Dewey wanted to impeach FDR at the height of our peril. They attacked FDR, Truman and even Eisenhower during time of war or crisis.

Leading Republicans even smeared and undermined Republican war heroes like General Marshall and President Eisenhower as betrayers. They promoted and followed extremists and opportunists like Taft, Nixon, McCarthy, Buckley and Schlafly. These militant Republicans, typified by Douglas MacArthur overreacted and overreached. MacArthur was able to clean up messes he caused through his overconfidence and ego, but like many Republicans he disdained the Constitution which enshrines civilian authority over the military and freedom as paramount US values and strengths.

MacArthur presaged Republican assaults on freedom and civilian authority led by Nixon and McCarthy. Before earning noteriety during WWII, MacArthur brutally attacked World War One veterans who were marching on Washington seeking their promised bonuses. After WWII, MacArthur ignored Chinese threats and Truman's orders when he provoked fatal retaliation and risked World War III in Korea.

After following pro-Nazi isolationists through WWII and then opting for redbaiting anti-freedom demagogues during the 1950s, Republicans in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s again proved they cannot keep us safe. Right wing heroes like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan agitated for nuclear war in Korea and then in Vietnam and again during the 1980s years as Republicans from Reagan to Richard Perle spoke openly of "winning" World War Three after making a first-strike nuclear attack against the USSR. Not content with risking the planet, Republicans including Nixon and Reagan broke our laws and squandered the lives of our military personnel for their personal and partisan gain.

Nixon brokered a deal a deal with the South Vietnamese to sabotage the Paris Peace Talks in 1968. He knew progress would save 10,000s of American lives while an ongoing war could risk another superpower confrontation, but Nixon didn't care. He feared a settlement would let Hubert Humphrey beat him at the polls, so Nixon promised voters he had a "secret plan" to end the war at the same time he was working to prolong it.

In typical Republican fashion, Nixon lied and innocents died. He promised the Saigon goverment if they rejected anything LBJ offered, Nixon would give them a better deal. A few weeks ago, I visited the Vietnam Memorial. While Nixon is not to blame for all the names from mid-1968 on, the blood of many were on his hands. In the end, Nixon betrayed the South Vietnamese and thousands of Americans in uniform he condemned to death.

Reagan repeated this shameful dirty trick, negotiating a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeni for personal gain. Reagan's campaign manager and eventual CIA director William Casey offered rich rewards if Iran held our hostages long enough to ensure Reagan the White House 1980. Iran complied, and released our hostages almost simultaneously as Reagan took the oath of office.

Unlike Nixon, Reagan kept his end of his corrupt bargain when he sent planes loaded with missiles and spare parts to the outlaw regime which kidnapped our diplomats and supported the terrorists who killed 240 US Marines in Beirut. That was the "Iran" part of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Claims Reagan "won the Cold War" are among the most ludicrous commonly held notions since people believed the world was flat. Reagan did nothing to encourage the coup which brought down Gorbachev, or to ensure that the military would back Yeltsin rather than their militant generals. In fact, the opposite is true. Even after he left office, Reagan visited the USSR and proclaimed it was no longer an evil empire. He assured the world that his friend Gorbachev would continue leading the Soviet Union for years to come. Mere months later, the Soviet Union was no more, no thanks to Reagan.

Reagan put all the American eggs in the Gorbachev basket. Reagan never promoted Yeltsin or free elections as an alternative to the "Evil Empire" Soviet system. For most of his time in office Reagan's rash irrepsonsible comments and wasteful overspending on the military only empowered and provoked the most hard-line Soviets. Reagan spent a lot, but came along too late to win the Cold War. Reagan nearly sparked World War III. Yuri Andropov placed the USSR on the highest military alert as his and Reagan's mutual animosity nearly killed us all.

After the fall of the USSR - an event long in coming, but hastened by policies and organizations right wingers opposed like the Marshall Plan and NATO - Republicans continued to undermine our national security while arrogantly and dishonestly claiming they kept us safe. Reagan famously announced weapons proliferation, even the spread of nuclear weapons was "none of our business." Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon excoriated President Carter's advisor Jody Powell for taking this at face value, but Reagan proved he was deadly serious.

Reagan armed and empowered terrorist states like Iran and Iraq, ostensibly to balance them against each other but -- many suspect -- really to enrich weapons makers who supported him since his days as General Electric pitchman. Reagan confirmed this with specific policies and by appointing proliferationists like George Schultz and Casper Weinberger to his cabinet. These right wing Republicans spent $billions of our taxes on boondoggles like $1200 coffee machines and $980 toilet seats soaking us as their rich campaign contributers cashed in with "cost plus" guaranteed profits.

While some of the weapons actually worked, in the end all this profligate spending and weapons proliferation undermined our economic and national security. The Reagan administration hawked weapons to Africa, Latin America, and Arab nations like Kuwait and Saudi as well as stepping up sales to Israel. All of this destablized the planet and escalated tensions in turbulent regions into bloody conflicts. None of it kept us safe, and much of it "blew back" to hurt us such as the Reagan policies which made bin Laden and Taliban into the threats they are today.

The first Bush administration carried on Reagan's recklessness. Bush and his then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney lied to the Congress to arm Saddam Hussein and left the US taxpayers holding the bag when Iraq defaulted on loans Bush guaranteed. The entire Bush administration ignored including Bush, Cheney and Colin Powell explicit Iraqi threats and satellite photos warning them of the impending attack on Kuwait.

Either GHW Bush and his top officials actually engineered the war against Iraq -- risking our national security for selfish personal and partisan reasons -- and lied to the American people about it, or else they were too stupid to keep us safe. Maybe both. Every Republican failure and / or shameful deception is on display in the current Bush administration.

We saw the Nixon / Reagan tradition of double-dealing in their efforts to seduce the Taliban into a pipeline deal by pulling back the attack subs and other protections established by Clinton's policies. Bush also ordered our FBI and CIA to "back off" the bin Laden terrorists who saw this weakness and attacked -- just as they did slaughtering our marines in Beirut during the Reagan years. In this case, more than 3000 Americans died due to Republican failure to keep us safe.

As Reagan did went his reckless policies failed, Bush responded by attacking another country to distract attention. Will it work as well this time? If not, will Bush keep attacking one nation after another to trick the voters? In any case, here's the bottom line: Bush is doing exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted him to do, and not doing anything to keep us safe. This Bush administration, the prior Bush, Reagan, Nixon and Republicans in Congress and the media have maintained an unbroken Republican tradition of failing to keep us safe dating back to the 1930s -- at least.

This shameful legacy of Republican failure actually dates back to the early ninteen hundreds when the short-sighted isolationist Republicans undermined Woodrow Wilson's leadership during World War One back in 1917. Republicans in Congress compunded this blocking US participation in the League of Nations, and undermining Wilson's other post-war diplomatic efforts which might have prevented the rise of fascism and World War II.

As AWOL Bush, a personal coward and liar misleads us into fearing phantoms he fails to address real threats. Worse, his master manipulators led by Karl Rove maximize our fears for selfish and partisan gain. We're lucky to be here as we're entering the second century of gross Republican failure to keep us safe, but how much longer can we squander American blood and money?