Demagogue

Found within a Salon review of Christine Todd Whitman's new book is a very tasty, apt description. I didn't want to be selfish, so in the spirit of sharing and tickling other people's fancies...

Bush's narrow victory in November completed the Republican Party's transformation from a vehicle for principled conservatives into a debt-fueled pimpmobile for crony capitalists and religious hucksters.

Even more amusing is what reviewer Steve Hart of The Opinion Mill says about her book:

How, at this late date, shall we identify the elusive, yeti-like creature known as the moderate Republican? Whitman herself invites horselaughs whenever she cites fellow travelers on the great middle way. On the Republican side, she brightly offers Tom Ridge, whose blatant pimping of terror alerts whenever Bush's poll numbers looked too shaky helped turn the Department of Homeland Security into a reliable source of material for Jay Leno and David Letterman. On the Democratic side, even more astonishingly, Whitman tosses her bouquet to Georgia Sen. Zell Miller, whose foam-flecked rant before last year's GOP national convention had even case-hardened culture warriors calling for a tranquilizer rifle and a net.
...
Since flunking out of the Bush League, Whitman has been relegated to the bush leagues, and she's clearly impatient to become a player again. Ultimately, the most pressing question in "It's My Party, Too" is: Does Christie Whitman still have a place in the Republican Party? The answer: Sure, as long as she's ready to keep playing the role of a front. And if she is, we can already guess the title of her next book: "Thank You, Sir, May I Have Another?" And the subtitle: "I Spent Years Sucking Up to Fundies and Ideological Con Men and All I Got Was This Stupid Book Deal."

Thanks to Steve for saving us all the trouble of finding out just how truly sad, used and dirty Christine Todd Whitman must feel.