Who took all the mirrors out of the White House?

Former Bush speech-writer David Frum has an interesting and unfortunately astute column in the Post this morning. He argues that the McCain campaign is not only losing the race for the White House, but that the way he is doing it is sabotaging the rest of the Republican Party.

McCain got the formula backwards: he campaigned during the center during the primaries, and then upon discovering that he had no party base, campaigned to the right during the general election and sacrificed all of those "swing" votes that any candidate needs to get elected. As such, McCain is not only leeching campaign money from congressional races, but also making the race that much harder for vulnerable Republicans in states and districts where the electorate is far more moderate. As such, he's setting the GOP up to lose more seats than they would if they had a better presidential candidate.

Frum then turns his argument to the defense of a divided government: keeping the Congress and the White House in the hands of opposing parties, for the sake of checks and balances. His proposed plea from the Republican Party to the voters of America reads as follows.

We're almost certainly looking at a Democratic White House. I can work with a Democratic president to help this state. But we need balance in Washington.

"The government now owns a big stake in the nation's banking system. Trillions of dollars are now under direct government control. It's not wise to put that money under one-party control. It's just too tempting. You need a second set of eyes on that cash. You need oversight and accountability. Otherwise, you're going to wake up two years from now and find out that a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House have been funneling a ton of that money to their friends and allies. It'll be a big scandal -- but it will be too late. The money will be gone. Divided government is the best precaution you can have."

Alas and alack, if only Frum and his ilk had had that same concern 8 years ago when they took control of all three branches of government, and pissed away $16 billion on an extraneous war to a company once run by the Vice President that doesn't seem to be paying taxes in this country.

Someone should please mention this to John McCain, who's incensed by how much American businesses have to pay in taxes.